T&C Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 In west central Florida, Tampa area, it is almost every day between June and October... so no real one I could say. **** is ferocious... usually after 3pm or so. 1
Sweats Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 About 5 yrs. ago at the Bruce Power nuclear plant on Lake Huron, we witnessed 8 waterspouts coming in off the lake. If you’ve never seen one you’d be in for quite the surprise.....now imagine seeing 8 of them at the same time. We were all stuck in the plant until the storm blew over. Wow......just wow.
row_33 Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 Nothing totally life threatening but a few times in a foundationless cottage while a hurricane passed within a mile wasn’t fun.
Mark80 Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 Indiana, tornado season. Tornado sirens were blaring, wind gusts were hitting 90mph. News outlets were telling everyone to take cover and I was chilling in a bath tub in the middle of my house since I had no basement. It was the only time I have ever been scared in a storm. Luckily, no tornado ever touched down, but it was still a very nasty 15-20 mins. It was crazy, stuff was everywhere outside from peoples yards.
RochesterRob Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 9 hours ago, Ridgewaycynic2013 said: Mount Morris Dam on the Genesee River, at the north end of Letchworth State Park, came very close to overflowing. Quite common in lake effect snowstorms around here (WNY/Southern Ontario) in late fall and early winter. Yep, I mentioned the Mount Morris dam in the other weather thread by the OP. They opened a couple of gates to keep the dam from overflowing. There was worry about debris going over the top creating damage down stream so the decision was made to discharge water even though it meant minor flooding in Monroe County. I attended SUNY Alfred back during the 1980's and the 1972 flood got mentioned plenty as it pertained to Wellsville and the surrounding area. Some people suffered a permanent loss as I understood it. Apparently, it was easier to get full federal assistance if your home or business was right next to the Genesee River versus up in the hills. Some farms there suffered extensive top soil erosion rendering the farms useless other than to let brush grow.
Marv's Neighbor Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 Several years ago, I was on an overnight flight from Seattle to JFK. My plan was to sleep as much as possible but started watching the most incredible lightning show, all the way across the USA. Most of the activity was at least 100 miles S of the flight route, but very spectacular. 1
Not at the table Karlos Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 Driving back from Texas. We were somewhere in ohio and everywhere you looked there was constant lightning strikes. Didn't have a camera phone at the time but I bet you could easily take pics of the lightning there was so much. Cheektowaga about 15 years ago. There was tornado watches but no confirmed touchdowns. Temp dropped like 10 degrees in what seemed like seconds, got really dark, large Tree branches and debris were flying around. Sounded like a train drove up the street. A lot of damage and everyone in the area swears it was a tornado but the news and weather service said there wasnt. There was a few days of back and forth on if one touched down or not.
The Avenger Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 About 5 years ago I went to see a minor league game at Fenway Park in Boston and the skies just opened up - sheets of rain. I was covered by the overhang in the right field boxes and you could barely see the Green Monster it was coming down so hard. The rain washed down onto the field so fast that it was waist deep out by Pesky's pole and guys were actually swimming. Obviously the end of the game - no way you're going to restart a game after that sort of rain.
row_33 Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 spent some quality times a safe distance from the Ozarks, almost every day you could see funnels forming off yonder, quite the natural wonder display.... the town a mile from my place of stay was wiped out a year before i got there from a tornado
US Egg Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 (edited) Was climbing on old coal cars in a train yard near my house when a kid with a friend in the rain when all off a sudden there was a huge flash as we were on the outside of a coal car on top of the ladder and ended up suddenly tossed to the ground, about 12 ft. down. Lightening hit somewhere near and knocked us off. Edited June 19, 2018 by I am the egg man
sherpa Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 1 hour ago, Marv's Neighbor said: Several years ago, I was on an overnight flight from Seattle to JFK. My plan was to sleep as much as possible but started watching the most incredible lightning show, all the way across the USA. Most of the activity was at least 100 miles S of the flight route, but very spectacular. The best views of thunderstorms are from the air. I've seen storms that are so intense that weather radar can't get through them. What you see is one giant red return and nothing but a shadow behind. Similar to your experience, I remember one evening flying from Chicago to Orlando. This British woman introduced herself and asked how the weather was. I told her there was a huge line of thunderstorms that would be parallel to our route, but we would avoid the line. She told me that since she was from the UK, she was no stranger to rain. Two hour of paralleling that thing and it was nothing but a spectacular light show. Not a single second without some lightening, which show up much more at night, obviously. Anyway, when she got off, she said she never saw anything like it. UK and western Europe just doesn't get hot enough for serious convective activity. The Amazon basin in norther Brazil has some pretty good ones, but the midwest US can compete, just not every day. During flight planning, you can get charts that show potential for huge storms. They graphically display moisture content and atmospheric instability, which when combined, and extreme, is what leads to sever thunderstorms. One of the worst I've ever seen was the evening that Air France Airbus crashed from Rio to Paris. Just impenetrable.
sodbuster Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 19 hours ago, ExiledInIllinois said: As a Boy Scout @ Philmont in New Mexico. Hiking up to the "Tooth of Time" Ridge... 1984. It was getting bad up to Schaffer's Pass to Peak to ToT Ridge... ...We were trying to rendezvous w/the rest of the Greater Niagara Frontier Council @ the Tooth of Time... So we could be up early to see the sun rise over The Tooth while being on The Tooth. So our crew/squad pressed on past our scheduled camp up to the ridge to make rendezvous well into late afternoon and evening when the thunderstorms roll in over the mountains... ...Climbing up the pass to Shaffer's we were getting pounded... At one point, lightning was popping everywhere... One flash struck around 10 yards away took a tree... We all hit the deck... Back in those days, no internal frame packs... We had aluminium external frames... ...We get to the top of Shaffer's and the start of the ridge @ the peak... There is a 100 yards of clearing. It's that or go around and stay in the treeline for 10 times that. What's worse??? We darted across with hip belts off... Maybe pretty foolish... But I am here to tell the story... Thunderstorms popping everywhere! Storms start to die down... We hike ridge a little... There there is a monument to a Scout that got zapped in 1936... We hike into evening and make rendezvous @ about 23:00... We just crash on trail after that 20 mile hike (we skipped a camp)... Sleeping bags right on trail... ...Wake up early before sunrise... To see others from GNF Council scattered all over trail in the pre-dawn... They made it to rendezvous after us. Watch sunrise on the Tooth of Time. The Tooth of Time is the landmark where the pioneers would turn on the Santa Fe Trail: We were up on that ridge coming from the left to the right... To get sunrise from ontop of The Tooth. Needless to say... When I went back in 1986... I had my aluminum pack frame wrapped in electrical tape... Hockey stick style... LoL... Not sure if that would help, but one wrap of tape does insulate 600v... Which I still would be toast... But it made for nice convo why my frame was wrapped! I should digitize my prints/pics of that trek, sunrise, etc... My camp had a few scouts get zapped back in '01, and ever since then they are extremely rigid with the electrical storm protocols. It was incredibly frustrating as program director having to deal with leaders who would pressure my staff to shirk the protocol, and then others (leaders and staff members) who were in camp for the unfortunate incident. Worst storm I've been in had to be the 1998 Labor Day Storm in Rochester. My father and I had planned on going salmon fishing the next day, and the trees across the driveway weren't going to pull him away from that. A sagging powerline on route 18 did though. Ripped the hard top right off the boat. 1
Gray Beard Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 https://www.cnyhistory.org/2014/09/labor-day-storm-1998/ “Shortly after 1 am on the morning of Labor Day 1998, a line of fierce thunderstorms moved into the area, striking Central New York from the west with wind gusts of up to 115mph. The storm devastated the community, damaging hundreds of buildings and tens of thousands of trees. More than 200,000 people lost power, which was not restored to some until the following week. New York State declared the community a disaster area and federal aid was sought.”
frostbitmic Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 I was in my back yard in Rochester putting together a mountain bike when this strange storm started approaching from the East. In Rochester almost all storms come from the West. There was a lot of lightning bolts going in every direction so I grabbed the bike and my tools and took them inside into my workroom in the basement. I was standing barefoot on the concrete slab, near a small open window and about 4' from where the main water line came into my house. I was working on the bike with a pair of vise grips in my hand when an instant flash and what sounded like a bomb went off when I felt electricity enter both of my feet, travel up my legs to my arm, the vise grips went flying across the room and the bottoms of my feet hurt like hell for days. After the storm I went outside and in the yard about 35-40 feet from where I was there was a burned patch of grass about the size of a small plate. It missed the house by 10 feet. 9 minutes ago, Gray Beard said: https://www.cnyhistory.org/2014/09/labor-day-storm-1998/ “Shortly after 1 am on the morning of Labor Day 1998, a line of fierce thunderstorms moved into the area, striking Central New York from the west with wind gusts of up to 115mph. The storm devastated the community, damaging hundreds of buildings and tens of thousands of trees. More than 200,000 people lost power, which was not restored to some until the following week. New York State declared the community a disaster area and federal aid was sought.” I remember that storm, it started just South of Toronto over Lake Ontario, did a lot of damage in Rochester and killed a couple people who were sleeping in their RV at the state fair. The sky in Rochester was aglow for at least an hour from non stop lightning.
Gray Beard Posted June 19, 2018 Posted June 19, 2018 18 minutes ago, frostbitmic said: I was in my back yard in Rochester putting together a mountain bike when this strange storm started approaching from the East. In Rochester almost all storms come from the West. There was a lot of lightning bolts going in every direction so I grabbed the bike and my tools and took them inside into my workroom in the basement. I was standing barefoot on the concrete slab, near a small open window and about 4' from where the main water line came into my house. I was working on the bike with a pair of vise grips in my hand when an instant flash and what sounded like a bomb went off when I felt electricity enter both of my feet, travel up my legs to my arm, the vise grips went flying across the room and the bottoms of my feet hurt like hell for days. After the storm I went outside and in the yard about 35-40 feet from where I was there was a burned patch of grass about the size of a small plate. It missed the house by 10 feet. I remember that storm, it started just South of Toronto over Lake Ontario, did a lot of damage in Rochester and killed a couple people who were sleeping in their RV at the state fair. The sky in Rochester was aglow for at least an hour from non stop lightning. I remember hearing about the RV deaths. The experts said it was a derecho, not a tornado. Lightning was constant for an hour or more. I didn’t think about going into the basement for safety, but I probably should have. Power was out and many tree limbs were broken, but no real damage at my house.
ExiledInIllinois Posted June 20, 2018 Posted June 20, 2018 (edited) 5 hours ago, sodbuster said: My camp had a few scouts get zapped back in '01, and ever since then they are extremely rigid with the electrical storm protocols. It was incredibly frustrating as program director having to deal with leaders who would pressure my staff to shirk the protocol, and then others (leaders and staff members) who were in camp for the unfortunate incident. Worst storm I've been in had to be the 1998 Labor Day Storm in Rochester. My father and I had planned on going salmon fishing the next day, and the trees across the driveway weren't going to pull him away from that. A sagging powerline on route 18 did though. Ripped the hard top right off the boat. Yeah... We were in a bind that evening. We crossed the "Rubicon" by pressing on, there was nowhere to go but forward. Of course this was in the days when we didn't have radar and real-time lightening strikes at our finger tips via a handheld device. Not sure what we should have done, hunkering down in the treeline didn't seem all too smart either. Probably how the Scout in '36 found himself. Exposed on the ridge not that much better... But storms blew thru. That ridgeline can be a bad situation. Probably should have read the clouds better and stayed low instead of hiking up ridge. The coming darkness sure clouded our judgement and a race to make the rendezvous point. Others in the contingent must have been in a worse situation... Or waited it out... Hence getting to the rendezvous point after us. Edited June 20, 2018 by ExiledInIllinois
Soda Popinski Posted June 22, 2018 Posted June 22, 2018 (edited) Do Hurricanes count? Charlie/Francis/Ivan/Jeane/Irma/one in 2005 I can't remember the name. Irma was probably the worst last year it took roof shingles off the house and broke a fence post. I was also in Marathon FL during hurricane Alberto this year for a day. 50mph sustained winds is not good fishing weather. EDIT: I forgot Andrew back in 1992 Edited June 22, 2018 by Soda Popinski
Recommended Posts