I have had near-miss trees falling in my path, and a month or so ago the tornado siren went off as I was pedalling under. I kept on, and indeed had another "this was really stupid" moment four miles later. Last week, in the span of 10 minutes there were more down trees than open path for more than half a mile, and not small ones that you could climb over. Unlikely that any cyclist would have survived anywhere in that section when the storm hit. There was nothing definitive about that one, from the radar nor the reports, to distinguish it from any other rotating storm except for a nagging instinct.

I understand the thrill of it and I also prefer being on the bike to stuck in a car in nasty weather, but there are limits. Use common sense and if your intuition says no, listen to it.