my wife and i were driving to her parents a few years ago when iowa city, iowa got their strong F2 tornado:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_Ci...City_tornadoes
luckily we missed the tornadic part and just got hit with all the hail and rain. as we got to the back side of the storm we did see the tornado though.
living up here we see fewer tornadoes than nicker, but still have a decent amount of warning. before i moved to the QC 3 years ago i lived in a town 45 miles south and we got hit by a 'gustnado':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustnado
it totally blew apart the building next to our house. the roof of it hit the tree in our back yard and knocked it over: