Weather Imagery

A common tornado myth states opening all the windows in your house will stop the roof from being blown off. There’s another myth that says you should only open north facing windows. I’m not sure where these myths originated, but they are both pretty silly. It’s a matter of simple physics.

The roofs on most well constructed houses are held together by steel “L” brackets, a lot of nails, and 2×4 wood beams (or trusses). A window is nothing more than about a 1/4 inch pane of glass. If this myth were true, in that a closed window can be responsible for causing the roof to blow off, that is saying the glass is stronger than the construction of the roof, and that by opening the windows, the air will have an escape instead of launching the roof off the top of your house. This simply isn’t true.

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