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My house got ripped in half by a tornado while I was getting ready for school at 6am, when I was 14.
Edit: F3, so, add 100 km/h to your gales.
Dammit, I was hoping that I would have the first tornado story. And mine wasn't as traumatic as your's, but it is pretty cool...an F3 jumped over my house when I was about 8 or so. It was early morning, 2 am or so, when the sirens went off. My brother and I rushed into the living room where my parents were sleeping (it was July and the AC was in there) and watched the storm through the patio window. We all pretty much figured that if it hit the house we were screwed, and nothing we could do, so we might as well enjoy things. It jumped over our house and hit the backyard, jumped again and took down some power lines, jumped again and took the roof off the new post office.
This experience probably led to my major fear of tornadoes, to the extent that even the siren freaks me out.
This was when I was growing up in Illinois, we had a couple good tornado scares a year. In school we would have tornado drills in addition to fire drills: sit in the hallways, face the lockers, tuck down and put your hands on the back of your neck. They'd have us stay that way for 15-20 minutes, apparently assuming that we were yoga masters.
The creepy thing is the color of the sky; it always used to turn a pea-soup green before the 'nado developed.
It actually wasn't traumatic for me. I was pretty much over it immediately and went somewhere else while people were all running around being retards. Mostly because I didn't feel like dealing with rubber-neckers.
We got one snow storm before January here. However, it dumped like 12 inches of snow on the town over night and forced the university to close down (due to snow) for the first time in like 54 years. It was an awesome Friday.
unilateral on
0
Big DookieSmells great!DownriverRegistered Userregular
edited January 2007
I live in Southeast Texas, and a little over a year ago in 2005, Hurricane Rita made landall about 30 miles directly south of where I live. For those that don't know or remember, Hurricane Rita was a fairly large Hurricane that came though in late 2005, about a month after Katrina. It was actually larger than Katrina, reaching Cat 5 status in the Gulf and it made landfall as a Cat 3.
Basically, since it was after Katrina and no one in this area wanted the same thing to happen to us, we ALL evacuated. Most people went North and West, but we went East because there was less traffic. Turns out we made the right decision - we caught just a tiny bit of the east side of the storm, but nothing significant. Those who went north got screwed.
We weren't even allowed to return at first, and were evacuated for almost 3 weeks. The good news (or bad news, depending on how you look at it) is that our daughter was born while we were evacuated, and so we were technically homeless with a newborn baby for a while there. Eventually though we were able to come back home when the power was restored, and found minimal damage to our house with just some fence damage and slight roof damage. We were lucky though - several houses around us had been completely destroyed from falling trees, and one of them just barely missed our house.
We're only now, over the past few days, getting real snow on the ground here in Toronto.
Fucking El Nino.
Its not going to get any better.
Seattle has had 3 seperate instances of snow this year. As in, snow that sticks.
We never, ever, get more than one instance of snow in a year, if that.
Sacramento had a 20% chance of snow one day last week.
That's about as close as we ever get.
ElJeffe on
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The rest of the country is apparently snowless and CO keeps getting dumped on. Take your fucking snow back, assholes. Worst natural event I've been through was a few tornadoes when I was younger. Hell, in CO, the hordes of Californians moving in was scarier than the weather we get.
We're only now, over the past few days, getting real snow on the ground here in Toronto.
Fucking El Nino.
Its not going to get any better.
Seattle has had 3 seperate instances of snow this year. As in, snow that sticks.
We never, ever, get more than one instance of snow in a year, if that.
It's irritating how everyone seems to be blaming this weather on global warming. 7 years ago, I remember everyone was talking about el nino when it happened, but this year everyone is saying "oh man, it's scary how warm it is out this year I guess global warming is real after all," and I'm like "EL NINO BITCH" and they act all suprised.
We're only now, over the past few days, getting real snow on the ground here in Toronto.
Fucking El Nino.
Its not going to get any better.
Seattle has had 3 seperate instances of snow this year. As in, snow that sticks.
We never, ever, get more than one instance of snow in a year, if that.
It's irritating how everyone seems to be blaming this weather on global warming. 7 years ago, I remember everyone was talking about el nino when it happened, but this year everyone is saying "oh man, it's scary how warm it is out this year I guess global warming is real after all," and I'm like "EL NINO BITCH" and they act all suprised.
Let us look at the ENSO index.
Red is El Nino, and Blue is La Nina. So, we are in El Nino conditions, though nowhere as severe as the one in the late 90s.
While it is indeed stupid to blame it all on global warming, it is equally idiotic to blame it all on El Nino. In reality, the weather we've been seeing globally is a combination of El Nino, the positive NAO index, and global warming.
I don't blame it all on el Nino, I guess it came off that way. I know global warming is real, but it frustrates me when popular consensus jumps on one opinion when the real truth is so often a combination of multiple points of view.
Anyway, I just looked out my window... and.... it's snowing! Right on cue also. It was nice, el Nino, I had a fun time. Guess I'll be seeing you in 7 years. Bring more of those 70 degree January days next time.
Up here in Michigan we get some odd weather from time to time, including really nasty ice-storms (everything's still coated in ice from the freezing rain on Sunday evening).
My best story dealing with weather was my freshman year in highschool. It was May, and was really nasty outside. Darkest clouds I've ever seen, torrential rain. So in my English class we're all gawking at it, and my teacher goes "It's just rain. Nothing to worry about. Nothing fancy" and closes the window.
Not more than a minute later the secretary comes on the P.A. and says "There's a tornado warning for the next county over, and it's headed our way. Everyone please move in an orderly fashion to your designated tornado safe zone."
It didn't hit us, went the other way I think, but a good time wasting 45 minutes of class.
Vancouver has been getting hammered (relatively speaking) this winter. We've had something like 16 major weather systems in the last few months.
By far the worst weather I had was in Halifax in 2003/2004. Hurricane Juan made a visit to town and knocked shit around something fierce. Ripped the power hook up off my house, etc. And then there was a blizzard the following January.
So far, 4 weekends in a row, Colorado Springs has been getting dumped on with snow, or windy snow. I got money on a 5th starting tomorrow right about the time my weekend starts.
Colorado normally gets a fair bit of snow, But It has been like clock work so far. It either starts Thursday night, or Friday after noon, and leaves by Monday evening, leaving black ice, and ugly snowy shitty roads all over.
The dirty parts aside, some places in the springs are absolutely beautiful when covered in snow. These beautiful scenes are inevitably ruined by some shit-head soccer mom driving in her Escalade going 65 on a sheet of ice, trying to make a turn, hitting a curb and either losing control, or flipping the SUV on its top.
Flipping stupid Colorado Springs drivers during winter
We're only now, over the past few days, getting real snow on the ground here in Toronto.
Fucking El Nino.
Its not going to get any better.
Seattle has had 3 seperate instances of snow this year. As in, snow that sticks.
We never, ever, get more than one instance of snow in a year, if that.
It's irritating how everyone seems to be blaming this weather on global warming. 7 years ago, I remember everyone was talking about el nino when it happened, but this year everyone is saying "oh man, it's scary how warm it is out this year I guess global warming is real after all," and I'm like "EL NINO BITCH" and they act all suprised.
You know what El Nino is right?
Its warm water.
You are aware what Global warming means in terms of climate change right?
It means higher energy contained in the system.
You know what a higher energy contained in the system means right?
It means more variation from the increasing average temperatures.
You know what more variation from the increasing average temperatures means?
We're only now, over the past few days, getting real snow on the ground here in Toronto.
Fucking El Nino.
Its not going to get any better.
Seattle has had 3 seperate instances of snow this year. As in, snow that sticks.
We never, ever, get more than one instance of snow in a year, if that.
It's irritating how everyone seems to be blaming this weather on global warming. 7 years ago, I remember everyone was talking about el nino when it happened, but this year everyone is saying "oh man, it's scary how warm it is out this year I guess global warming is real after all," and I'm like "EL NINO BITCH" and they act all suprised.
You know what El Nino is right?
Its warm water.
You are aware what Global warming means in terms of climate change right?
It means higher energy contained in the system.
You know what a higher energy contained in the system means right?
It means more variation from the increasing average temperatures.
You know what more variation from the increasing average temperatures means?
So far, 4 weekends in a row, Colorado Springs has been getting dumped on with snow, or windy snow. I got money on a 5th starting tomorrow right about the time my weekend starts.
Colorado normally gets a fair bit of snow, But It has been like clock work so far. It either starts Thursday night, or Friday after noon, and leaves by Monday evening, leaving black ice, and ugly snowy shitty roads all over.
The dirty parts aside, some places in the springs are absolutely beautiful when covered in snow. These beautiful scenes are inevitably ruined by some shit-head soccer mom driving in her Escalade going 65 on a sheet of ice, trying to make a turn, hitting a curb and either losing control, or flipping the SUV on its top.
Flipping stupid Colorado Springs drivers during winter
I get that here in Madison as well. I got to watch someone take their Corvette and try to whip it around a curve, throwing the backend around and being all slick. Their third attempt wrapped the back end around a telephone pole. It was glorious.
No one was hurt, and no real damage apart from destroying the gate to my garage. Luckily it was just the smaller branches which hit the house, else it could have been much more expensive.
Here in Georgia, we're tough when it comes to natural disasters.
However, we got around three flakes of snow yesterday, and every highway in the state went fucking nuts. I'm talking, people driving 50 in the 65 zone. Who had heard that there might be snow. That night.
Up in PA saw a fair amount of snow, got to watch a tornado form, and there was this nifty storm where tennisball sized hail was reported.
been through ohh... 6 or 8 hurricanes in florida, but the few that passed dirrectly over my area, were already pretty minor. Mainly a lot of wind, rain and tornado warnings. A whole lot of no power afterwards, which isn't fun. A fair amount of carting away trees that missed my house by not too much.
Got out of school for a week once, because my school was under a foot or so of water. a few other times for a day or two. Or got to miss work.
Returning to New Orleans two weeks after Katrina was a fairly awful experience, but thankfully I wasn't there for the actual storm.
However, I was there for Hurricane Cindy a month earlier. It was only a Category 1 storm, but it was a pretty amazing thing to go through. It was predicted to be a mere Tropical Storm at landfall, so no one bothered evacuating. In fact, I went over to a friend's house that night thinking it would be no big deal. I ended up driving home during the peak of the storm. It's hard to describe. It's nothing like normal rain, more like a wall of water swirling and churning all around you. It's very loud. The most dramatic part of it all is the flashes and loud booms when the transformers on the utility poles start blowing.
So far, 4 weekends in a row, Colorado Springs has been getting dumped on with snow, or windy snow. I got money on a 5th starting tomorrow right about the time my weekend starts.
Colorado normally gets a fair bit of snow, But It has been like clock work so far. It either starts Thursday night, or Friday after noon, and leaves by Monday evening, leaving black ice, and ugly snowy shitty roads all over.
The dirty parts aside, some places in the springs are absolutely beautiful when covered in snow. These beautiful scenes are inevitably ruined by some shit-head soccer mom driving in her Escalade going 65 on a sheet of ice, trying to make a turn, hitting a curb and either losing control, or flipping the SUV on its top.
Flipping stupid Colorado Springs drivers during winter
Hey! I'm in the springs too! How bout them snow plows! This weekly blizzard crap we have going on wouldn't be so bad if the fucks could get the streets cleared in between the storms. I too am betting on another shitty weekend.
All my crazy weather stories are CO blizzards - the one in '97 was awesome but I got stranded for a week out in the plains with all the dead cows (highways were all shut down) and the one that hit the northern part of the state in '02 shut down Fort Collins for almost a week - lots of partying and drunken snow-fort building those days
Well, I've got three personal storm stories (and one family one I'll throw out there) that I might as well share.
Probably the most interesting one, as in eventful, for me was the 1995 (I think) ice storm that Virginia got. My family was spending some time prior to Christmas in Williamsburg, and was planning on going back home Christmas Eve. So we have a great time seeing the sights before the bad weather started, had a fantastic "olde style" Christmas dinner at one of the shows they put on (my sister and I polished off about 7 bottles of Alpenglow. Yum). Anyway, we get back to the hotel and the power goes out. Spent Christmas-eve-eve listening to christmas carols on a battery powered radio around a candle burning in a plastic bowl. Fun times. Next morning, after a freezing cold shower, we bundle into the car and try to make it out of the area, because the roads were (relatively) clear. Turns out we didn't have enough gas to make it out of the blackout zone. Take that as a lesson, kiddos - fill up when you get half a tank or so. You never know when you'll need it.
So, we turn back around, find another hotel with open places which was offering half-price for people (like us) who were stranded, and had a gas fireplace. Had another wonderful day of no power in a hotel. Dad had gotten up early on Christmas, and the power came on again. He literally RAN to the car, got to a gas station and started pumping - the power went out again while he was still pumping (the gas was apparently moving REAL slowly) due to the shock to the system of everything coming back on, but he had gotten just enough for us to make it to Richmond (which had power) and make it back home.
In 1996, my area got 3.5 feet of snow from the Blizzard of '96. As my school district was the entire county and the secondary roads had to be clear before school could be held, coupled with the fact that at that time the county was not prepared for that sort of snowfall AT ALL...yeah. I got off 3 weeks of school.
The last story is the coolest one, I suppose, but I'm afraid I don't have the picture scanned on my computer (or even know where it is right now - it appears to have been lost in my move). When I ws really young, my family was on vacation someplace on the Atlantic Coast and there was a bad storm - there was a waterspout off the coast from our hotel. We got a photo of it, and the memory is blurry because I had been sleeping prior to being woken up to see it. What stands out is that after it went back up into the cloud (we were on alert to evacuate if it started moving closer to the coast) there was a waterfall out of the clouds from all the water it had pulled up. If I can find that picture, I'll see if any of my friends around here have a scanner that I can use.
On a completely different tack, my uncles went surfing on the swells that came in before Hurricane Hugo.
And as a final note, lots of fun pictures of storms at this website.
Posts
And still manning the phones...
Its not going to get any better.
Seattle has had 3 seperate instances of snow this year. As in, snow that sticks.
We never, ever, get more than one instance of snow in a year, if that.
Basically, since it was after Katrina and no one in this area wanted the same thing to happen to us, we ALL evacuated. Most people went North and West, but we went East because there was less traffic. Turns out we made the right decision - we caught just a tiny bit of the east side of the storm, but nothing significant. Those who went north got screwed.
We weren't even allowed to return at first, and were evacuated for almost 3 weeks. The good news (or bad news, depending on how you look at it) is that our daughter was born while we were evacuated, and so we were technically homeless with a newborn baby for a while there. Eventually though we were able to come back home when the power was restored, and found minimal damage to our house with just some fence damage and slight roof damage. We were lucky though - several houses around us had been completely destroyed from falling trees, and one of them just barely missed our house.
That was a fun time.
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Sacramento had a 20% chance of snow one day last week.
That's about as close as we ever get.
In the summer it hits 115; this is a really weird place when it comes to weather. It also snowed here in June.
Record high and low for Feb.
February 75.0° (02/24/1995) -31.0° F (02/02/1996)
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It's irritating how everyone seems to be blaming this weather on global warming. 7 years ago, I remember everyone was talking about el nino when it happened, but this year everyone is saying "oh man, it's scary how warm it is out this year I guess global warming is real after all," and I'm like "EL NINO BITCH" and they act all suprised.
Let us look at the ENSO index.
Red is El Nino, and Blue is La Nina. So, we are in El Nino conditions, though nowhere as severe as the one in the late 90s.
While it is indeed stupid to blame it all on global warming, it is equally idiotic to blame it all on El Nino. In reality, the weather we've been seeing globally is a combination of El Nino, the positive NAO index, and global warming.
Anyway, I just looked out my window... and.... it's snowing! Right on cue also. It was nice, el Nino, I had a fun time. Guess I'll be seeing you in 7 years. Bring more of those 70 degree January days next time.
My best story dealing with weather was my freshman year in highschool. It was May, and was really nasty outside. Darkest clouds I've ever seen, torrential rain. So in my English class we're all gawking at it, and my teacher goes "It's just rain. Nothing to worry about. Nothing fancy" and closes the window.
Not more than a minute later the secretary comes on the P.A. and says "There's a tornado warning for the next county over, and it's headed our way. Everyone please move in an orderly fashion to your designated tornado safe zone."
It didn't hit us, went the other way I think, but a good time wasting 45 minutes of class.
By far the worst weather I had was in Halifax in 2003/2004. Hurricane Juan made a visit to town and knocked shit around something fierce. Ripped the power hook up off my house, etc. And then there was a blizzard the following January.
Colorado normally gets a fair bit of snow, But It has been like clock work so far. It either starts Thursday night, or Friday after noon, and leaves by Monday evening, leaving black ice, and ugly snowy shitty roads all over.
The dirty parts aside, some places in the springs are absolutely beautiful when covered in snow. These beautiful scenes are inevitably ruined by some shit-head soccer mom driving in her Escalade going 65 on a sheet of ice, trying to make a turn, hitting a curb and either losing control, or flipping the SUV on its top.
Flipping stupid Colorado Springs drivers during winter
You know what El Nino is right?
Its warm water.
You are aware what Global warming means in terms of climate change right?
It means higher energy contained in the system.
You know what a higher energy contained in the system means right?
It means more variation from the increasing average temperatures.
You know what more variation from the increasing average temperatures means?
El Nino.
I get that here in Madison as well. I got to watch someone take their Corvette and try to whip it around a curve, throwing the backend around and being all slick. Their third attempt wrapped the back end around a telephone pole. It was glorious.
And shinto, that made me laugh. Hard.
A TREE FALLING ON MA MUTHA FUCKIN HOUSE!!!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/98313930@N00/361827088/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/98313930@N00/361827093/
No one was hurt, and no real damage apart from destroying the gate to my garage. Luckily it was just the smaller branches which hit the house, else it could have been much more expensive.
However, we got around three flakes of snow yesterday, and every highway in the state went fucking nuts. I'm talking, people driving 50 in the 65 zone. Who had heard that there might be snow. That night.
been through ohh... 6 or 8 hurricanes in florida, but the few that passed dirrectly over my area, were already pretty minor. Mainly a lot of wind, rain and tornado warnings. A whole lot of no power afterwards, which isn't fun. A fair amount of carting away trees that missed my house by not too much.
Got out of school for a week once, because my school was under a foot or so of water. a few other times for a day or two. Or got to miss work.
However, I was there for Hurricane Cindy a month earlier. It was only a Category 1 storm, but it was a pretty amazing thing to go through. It was predicted to be a mere Tropical Storm at landfall, so no one bothered evacuating. In fact, I went over to a friend's house that night thinking it would be no big deal. I ended up driving home during the peak of the storm. It's hard to describe. It's nothing like normal rain, more like a wall of water swirling and churning all around you. It's very loud. The most dramatic part of it all is the flashes and loud booms when the transformers on the utility poles start blowing.
that's no good. I feel the whole thing has been hyperboled- we've had much worse storms here- but it sucks when you're close to the damage.
Or when it happens on top of you.
I was surprised at the number of people killed, I think it was 11 in total
Except my year, who had to go in in the morning for our AS exams.
Quick get the Pepsi cans and only the Pepsi cans.
Hey! I'm in the springs too! How bout them snow plows! This weekly blizzard crap we have going on wouldn't be so bad if the fucks could get the streets cleared in between the storms. I too am betting on another shitty weekend.
All my crazy weather stories are CO blizzards - the one in '97 was awesome but I got stranded for a week out in the plains with all the dead cows (highways were all shut down) and the one that hit the northern part of the state in '02 shut down Fort Collins for almost a week - lots of partying and drunken snow-fort building those days
edit: can't even spell drunken correct.
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Probably the most interesting one, as in eventful, for me was the 1995 (I think) ice storm that Virginia got. My family was spending some time prior to Christmas in Williamsburg, and was planning on going back home Christmas Eve. So we have a great time seeing the sights before the bad weather started, had a fantastic "olde style" Christmas dinner at one of the shows they put on (my sister and I polished off about 7 bottles of Alpenglow. Yum). Anyway, we get back to the hotel and the power goes out. Spent Christmas-eve-eve listening to christmas carols on a battery powered radio around a candle burning in a plastic bowl. Fun times. Next morning, after a freezing cold shower, we bundle into the car and try to make it out of the area, because the roads were (relatively) clear. Turns out we didn't have enough gas to make it out of the blackout zone. Take that as a lesson, kiddos - fill up when you get half a tank or so. You never know when you'll need it.
So, we turn back around, find another hotel with open places which was offering half-price for people (like us) who were stranded, and had a gas fireplace. Had another wonderful day of no power in a hotel. Dad had gotten up early on Christmas, and the power came on again. He literally RAN to the car, got to a gas station and started pumping - the power went out again while he was still pumping (the gas was apparently moving REAL slowly) due to the shock to the system of everything coming back on, but he had gotten just enough for us to make it to Richmond (which had power) and make it back home.
In 1996, my area got 3.5 feet of snow from the Blizzard of '96. As my school district was the entire county and the secondary roads had to be clear before school could be held, coupled with the fact that at that time the county was not prepared for that sort of snowfall AT ALL...yeah. I got off 3 weeks of school.
The last story is the coolest one, I suppose, but I'm afraid I don't have the picture scanned on my computer (or even know where it is right now - it appears to have been lost in my move). When I ws really young, my family was on vacation someplace on the Atlantic Coast and there was a bad storm - there was a waterspout off the coast from our hotel. We got a photo of it, and the memory is blurry because I had been sleeping prior to being woken up to see it. What stands out is that after it went back up into the cloud (we were on alert to evacuate if it started moving closer to the coast) there was a waterfall out of the clouds from all the water it had pulled up. If I can find that picture, I'll see if any of my friends around here have a scanner that I can use.
On a completely different tack, my uncles went surfing on the swells that came in before Hurricane Hugo.
And as a final note, lots of fun pictures of storms at this website.