NationStates Jolt Archive

I've been tossed to the ground like a ragdoll by a lightning strike. :p Felt like what I imagine an atomic blast would feel like.

I've also seen more than a few tornadoes, though none so close to make me fear for my safety, really.

Edit: Woo! OP is me! :p

I'm a little freaked right now...we're in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. I mean HUGE. Like...I can't hear myself talk over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof. There are severe weather warnings (http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/warnings/report_e.html?ab33) for the area, though luckily it hasn't been hailing here. Yet. I've packed a few things down in the little room under our stairs just in case, though I'm hoping it won't get much nasiter than this.

There have been a LOT of tornadoes in the area in the past few years. One trashed a community hall very close to my parent's house last year. Bizarre stuff...elders say they don't remember stories of any tornadoes out there...ever. And I'm talking thousands of years of oral accounts. I think my garden is going to be kaput after this:(

So we get flooding, and tornadoes now, but luckily no earthquakes or anything else terrible. What kind of severe weather do YOU get in your area in the summer?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_9,_1999_Cincinnati,_Ohio_Tornado

This hit only a little more than a mile from my house at the time and was over a mile wide at its strongest point. Of course, my genius of a brother heard the siren but didn't wake us up because he thought it was just a police car...

Cincinnati had some wicked weather. I can't wait to move back after I graduate.

Great. Now we've got hail. Pea sized so far, but...damn. And funnel clouds spotted out west.

Edit: Holy crap...there are shingles on the deck...those had better be from the shed and not from the frickin' house.

Our summers are fine if you don't mind the occasional tornado producing thunderstorm.

I've ducked into the basement a couple of times, and we've had to cut down two trees in our backyard due to storm damage, but no real danger.

Worst ever was once when I was biking with a friend. We were making our way home because we could tell a big storm was coming in, but we only made it about half way before the rain came...and it was coming down so hard it was nearly impossible to see. The wind picked up and nearly knocked us off our bikes, and there were large tree branches falling down all over the place....one fell between us as we rode, which scared the shit out of me, as I was trailing my friend, who didn't even notice.

We were lucky enough to be close to downtown when all this started, so we hauled ass to a local video game rental store. There were people huddled under all the store awnings, as the storm had struck in the middle of the afternoon. The owner of the video game store had known us both since we were in grade school, so he gladly let us hang out in his store till the storm moved off, and even found us a couple of towels so we could "dry" ourselves.

My waterproof watch, which I had worn while swimming dozens of times, no longer worked after that...that's how hard it was raining. :p

I live in south Florida--guess what we get in the summers.

Most recently it was Hurricane Wilma, and a couple of months before that it was Katrina when she was but a Category 1. I got my power back from that one just in time to see it swallow the Gulf Coast whole.

Hail's bigger now. My van is going to be a mess. Goodbye tomatoes :( Frick. I can't believe the kids are sleeping through this!

Might not be a bad thing - they'd probably want to go play in it. :p

Hail's bigger now. My van is going to be a mess. Goodbye tomatoes :( Frick. I can't believe the kids are sleeping through this!

Edit: And what the hell are 'necessary safety precautions'??? Damnit, I wonder if I should wake them up and camp out under the stairs.

I live in south Florida--guess what we get in the summers.

Most recently it was Hurricane Wilma, and a couple of months before that it was Katrina when she was but a Category 1. I got my power back from that one just in time to see it swallow the Gulf Coast whole.

*shudders* I don't know how you deal with it. That's some freaky shit.

I'm a little freaked right now...we're in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. I mean HUGE. Like...I can't hear myself talk over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof. There are severe weather warnings (http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/warnings/report_e.html?ab33) for the area, though luckily it hasn't been hailing here. Yet. I've packed a few things down in the little room under our stairs just in case, though I'm hoping it won't get much nasiter than this.

There have been a LOT of tornadoes in the area in the past few years. One trashed a community hall very close to my parent's house last year. Bizarre stuff...elders say they don't remember stories of any tornadoes out there...ever. And I'm talking thousands of years of oral accounts. I think my garden is going to be kaput after this:(

So we get flooding, and tornadoes now, but luckily no earthquakes or anything else terrible. What kind of severe weather do YOU get in your area in the summer?We're having a few days of extreme heat that, as eve moves in, are replaced with thunderstorms. Love it.
:)

Might not be a bad thing - they'd probably want to go play in it. :p

Ha, true! I loved storms when I was a kid! I was crazy...I'd go wash my hair in the rain.

The worse I've been through is Hurricane Hugo. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Hugo)

We've also had a pretty strong 100 year snow/ice storm hit us awhile back.

That's it. I'm setting up the little pop-up tent and some sleeping bags.

Take care all!

Hope it's a sturdy one, and good luck! :p

That's it. I'm setting up the little pop-up tent and some sleeping bags.

Take care all!

I live in Romania,Constanta-a port at the Black Sea.We get severe droughts in our area.Lots of people die of strokes and a little farther away,there are people who get rationed water.And once in a while when there's been much evaporation we get huge thunderstorms,a couple of days ago a lifeguard was lightning-struck in my town.

*shudders* I don't know how you deal with it. That's some freaky shit.

*shrugs* I grew up with it. I don't know how people deal with snow--fuck that shit.

I have been through a bunch of tornadoes, some which smashed up my house and leveled half the neighborhood, and a few major floods (Flood of 93 comes to my mind.) When you have to doge tornadoes even the worse non-tornado thunderstorm is laughable (other than when it hails on your car.)

I have been through a few earthquakes but those are not weather related. Oh, there are always blizzards and ice storms too, but those don't really pose much danger to me or anyone I know.

God-damned, awful, hellish, heinous heat.

There was last summer, when it was 110F+ (44C+) for a week. There was the hailstorm in May that dropped hailstones the size (and shape, oddly enough) of Thompson seedless grapes. Sometimes there's wind that has a baseline of 35mph (56kph) and gusts from there. It snowed two feet in the first week of April this year, and a couple of weeks in February were as cold as I've ever experienced. The worst was three days of -27F (-32C) with wind chills down to -55F (-48C). I emptied a cup of hot coffee on to the sidewalk and it bounced.

The good news is that without any real topography, you can always see bad weather coming.

I've lived through heatwaves (Reno at 108), cold snaps (Reno at -14), 7 year droughts (Well, that's Nevada normally), blizzards when said droughts break (6 ft of snow in about 12 hours) massive flooding, windstorms with gusts well over 100 mph, and way too many thunderstorms to count (Including a few striking next to the house).

Oh, and now I get typhoons now and then. I've kinda just learned to ignore the weather. :p

I've been through several hurricanes: One in Connecticut, One in Virginia and two in Florida.

I remember being without power for five days and having to chip away at fifteen inches of ICE after the 93 Nor'easter(The Storm of The Century). And I've been through several other intense Nor'easters.

Back when I rode my bike to work, I left to cloudy skies and got caught in torrential downpours and high winds within five miles. I stopped at a supermarket and that's where I heard that for the first time EVER, tornadoes were touching down in that part of Connecticut. I called out due to inclement weather. My boss said incredulously, "It's august! It can't be snowing!" I said, "No, it's not. It's tornadoing and I'm on a bicycle! I saw this movie and I don't want a house landing on me." :p

I moved to Colorado at the beginning of December last year. My son had done a creditable job of convincing me that the weather on the Front Range was good, only one or two snowstorms of any size in a winter, the rest just flurries and slush, some hail storms. Within thirty days I had experienced the first, second, third and fourth blizzards of my life. I (along with many other Coloradans) was trapped in my house for 2-3 days each time. I'm told that this was unusual.

At Easter, we experienced an ice storm that was called severe. I was driving from Colorado Springs to Denver at the time and at Monument the road became pretty much invisible and undrivable.

Coming, as I do, from Southern California, I found this just a trifle disconcerting.

God-damned, awful, hellish, heinous heat.

Gotta love Phoenix. ;)

I moved to Colorado at the beginning of December last year. My son had done a creditable job of convincing me that the weather on the Front Range was good, only one or two snowstorms of any size in a winter, the rest just flurries and slush, some hail storms. Within thirty days I had experienced the first, second, third and fourth blizzards of my life. I (along with many other Coloradans) was trapped in my house for 2-3 days each time. I'm told that this was unusual.

At Easter, we experienced an ice storm that was called severe. I was driving from Colorado Springs to Denver at the time and at Monument the road became pretty much invisible and undrivable.

Coming, as I do, from Southern California, I found this just a trifle disconcerting.

Maybe, but think about it. You get to live in Colorado. Glorious mountains and aspen/pine forests. I was just there the second week of June, in Breckenridge. It snowed when I arrived...on June 7th. At 9,600 feet, however, I was far too hypoxic to care.

Maybe, but think about it. You get to live in Colorado. Glorious mountains and aspen/pine forests. I was just there the second week of June, in Breckenridge. It snowed when I arrived...on June 7th. At 9,600 feet, however, I was far too hypoxic to care.

Believe me, that wasn't a complaint. I actually enjoyed the weather as long as I didn't have to drive in it. There's something about a good book, homemade soup and a wood-burning stove on a snowy day that just speaks to the soul. And, of course, I see Pike's Peak (less than 15 miles away) out my bedroom window every day - I get up at dawn just to look at it.

You are all lucky in a way to have those experiences.

Here in the UK if we have 1 inch of snow it is enough to grind the country to a halt, and anything over 30 degrees the rail tracks melt

As a nation obsessed with the weather we have some really tame stuff

So we get flooding, and tornadoes now, but luckily no earthquakes or anything else terrible. What kind of severe weather do YOU get in your area in the summer?

In my area summer is basically calmer than other seasons (not counting flash floods from the Seveso and Olona creeks, but that is mostly due to the fact that their course has been canalized underground through Milan). Some thunderstorms and hail, and, occasionally, whirlwinds and small tornadoes in the hills and high plains, but nothing more.

Spring is usually the worst season here, because of the wind coming directly from Siberia (the buran), which usually is strong enough (over 100 km/h) to uproot 100-years-old trees and damage roofs. Also the foehn can reach high speeds, in the order of 80 km/h.

Two years ago, we had a severe snowfall (about half metre in one hour). It was late autumn, so many trees had still all the leaves. The snow settled on the leaves and its weight snapped many branches and felled about 200 tall trees throughout the city. I was driving back home then, and it took me 1 hour to drive 5 km - there was a huge traffic jam.

As for quakes and volcanoes, no volcanoes here. Just some earthquakes, one strong enough to wake me 3 years ago, altough the epicentre was some 150 km away. Landslids (and, in winter and early spring, avalanches) only in the Alps.

Anyway, the most horrible weather I've been through:
1.a gale-force storm of the northern Atlantic while I was camping, in front of the sea, in Bretagne. What a night...
2.a hailstorm (more than 20 minutes) while I was on a small glacier (at about 3000 m) in the south-western alps.
3.a blizzard at the border between eastern Bayern and the S'umava district (Czech R.), I and a friend of mine were driving through this nightmare of wind (100 to 150 km/h), cold (-30 °C) and snow (in the order of half metre in half an hour) - and we had problems with the snow chains
4.a hurricane-force storm (wind at more than 130 km/h) while I was camping(again!!!) on the shores of the Lugano lake.

Nothing: Hot summers (40C), refreshing winters (8C), the occasional storm, no tornadoes, no volcanoes, no earthquakes, minimal flooding.

Just rain. NEVERENDING FRICKING RAIN! June sucks this year, July better be an improvement or I'm taking Mother Nature to the cleaners.

I live in Manila, and we are located at the western Pacific typhoon alley and are affected by the monsoon system. That's why every time I floods in other countries making headlines news, I would just shrug, Awww, too bad. You're not used to them. Landslides love us, flashfloods are attracted to us, and clogged drainage systems are big problems. I used to live in a place where as little as 20 minutes of moderate rain can turn a dry street into a river. I have waded through waist-deep flood with lots and lots of icky things floating about and endured two-week blackouts due to cut power lines...

But if you pray for the storm to abate, get ready to face the ~36 degree Celsius heat and the ~90% humidity.

I once encountered a storm where the wind blew off the roof of the place we were staying. (And I was sick with fever!) Then, going back home, we have to walk the entire day to the nearest town because the rail system was damaged.

*shrugs* I grew up with it. I don't know how people deal with snow--fuck that shit.

Heavy clothing, boots, and the underground. Simple as that.
Plus, snow is fun. It muffles the noise of the city and gives it a magical look.

I like snow. Have a snowball!:D

I like snow. Have a snowball!:D

I love the snow too......it makes my garden look as tidy as everyone elses:D

I've been through at least three tornadoes, all of them in New York. One was while I was camping in upstate NY, in which the tornado literally destroyed every site around ours. We only got a moderate sized branch that fell into our site.

My dad was freaking out at the time, yelling at me to wake my ass up because he could see the sky was an eerie green, and the rain was flying sideways. That and the sound of what sounded like a train approaching.

The only problem. No train tracks anywhere near there.

And I was pissed at my dad for waking me up.

Other than that, seeing as how I live in Florida (since 1990) I've gone through countless storms. My parent's house (Sebastian, FL) was smack in the middle of the 2004 hurricane deathmatch, and yet it survived better than homes built more recently. In fact, those homes were destroyed. Hell, even antique buildings in town stood just fine, buildings made of wood...

2004, my parents went without power for nearly a month. I lost power here in Jacksonville for all of...three minutes.

They went out and bought a powerful generator shortly thereafter, swearing they'd never suffer that again.

I don't fret about hurricanes anymore. Anything below a category 3 is simply a bad thunderstorm with a side case of oceanic diarrhea.

Hell, I sometimes randomly dance and laugh like a maniac in thunderstorms.

I remember there being something of a hurricane when I was on holiday in Florida, though it may have been just a storm with lots of rain, I was quite young so wouldn't have known the difference (in fact, I'm not sure I would now, having never experienced one).

Some time last year my hometown was the wettest place in the country for a day, my road was a river pretty much (it has rather bad drainage), and apparently the motorway bridge just near me had a waterfall coming off the side. While everyone stands inside watching it, my mad brother gets changed into an old tshirt and shorts and goes to lie in the grass and then walk down the road....:p He said it was really warm rain, tropical-like.

I think my old house had a tree knocked over during the storm that Michael Fish famously mispredicted.

back in jersey when there's a 40ft tide and a storm blowing in from the SW my house sometimes gets flooded by the sea. well, it used to. the garden's been rearranged a bit now with an extra wall between the house and the sea. still it can be pretty spectacular to see a wall of white-water contantly thrown up at the end of the garden and every wave you think is going to breach the wall and come rushing in.

weather in jersey or edinburgh is never really that exciting though. there was a few tornadoes/waterspouts in jersey recently. one tore through a couple of glass houses across the road from me a few years ago, destroyed a whole crop of tomatoes apparently.

worst i've been in was driving through a storm on the Severn Bridge... had to slow down to 5 or 10 mph because nobody could see the car ahead, yet alone the road (or the edge of the bridge :eek: )

i slept through the "hurricane" in the late 80s we had here, but i was a baby and don't remember :)

I'm a little freaked right now...we're in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. I mean HUGE. Like...I can't hear myself talk over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof. There are severe weather warnings (http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/warnings/report_e.html?ab33) for the area, though luckily it hasn't been hailing here. Yet. I've packed a few things down in the little room under our stairs just in case, though I'm hoping it won't get much nasiter than this.

There have been a LOT of tornadoes in the area in the past few years. One trashed a community hall very close to my parent's house last year. Bizarre stuff...elders say they don't remember stories of any tornadoes out there...ever. And I'm talking thousands of years of oral accounts. I think my garden is going to be kaput after this:(

So we get flooding, and tornadoes now, but luckily no earthquakes or anything else terrible. What kind of severe weather do YOU get in your area in the summer?
We had a couple rounds of hail yesterday dime sized though I heard parts of town got to golfball size

This time of year we get thrashed pretty thoroughly

I live in tornado territory. They don't come into the city, but the towns all around here get flattened frequently. Also, it's usually way too hot in the summers and too cold in the winters and too rainy the rest of the time.

Some occasional light drizzle.

Been through three separate tornadoes. Eh, you get used to 'em.

We had a couple rounds of hail yesterday dime sized though I heard parts of town got to golfball size

Oh my... (L)Goofball sized hail... that hurts :D

lost the house I was living in to a tornado twice, survived 3 direct hits, been through countless near misses, freak hail storms, and floods.

Remind me never to visit your part of the world

lost the house I was living in to a tornado twice, survived 3 direct hits, been through countless near misses, freak hail storms, and floods.

Remind me never to visit your part of the world

most people don't need a reminder, most just know to stay away. ;)

here is a pic of some of the houses in my former neighborhood

http://radiotimeline.com/wx-tornado-moore.jpg

http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/datasets/weatherradio/image3_650.jpg

you can tell where the houses were because of where the driveways are.

for every one house that was standing there were about 10 completely gone

of course the one that was standing was almost always damaged beyond repair anyway.

I'm in Florida...so hurricanes and tropical storms. Luckily, I've never been directly hit by a hurricane and my family has never had much damage from them.

most people don't need a reminder, most just know to stay away. ;)


It kind of makes it really difficult to complain about the weather here now. Damn you that was my favourite past-time

Another one who lives in a hurricane prone zone. I've had the eye of a minor hurricane go straight over. The tornadoes that get spawned by the hurricane lack amusement value as well. I think that I had one of those less than 30 yards from my residence. Its LOUD!!!

Currently, the natural threat is FIRE! The Panhandle area is all too blasted dry, Actually I think that the entire state is under fire-ban - and has been for months. One wildfire got within a mile of my residence. YIKES!!!

It kind of makes it really difficult to complain about the weather here now. Damn you that was my favourite past-time

you can still complain. I still complain about random weather than annoys me but is not as bad as an F-5 tornado

just yesterday I was complaining that it was 92F and 80% humidity and it felt like I couldn't get enough oxygen out of the air to breathe.

I'll post what I've experienced here in NC, since I haven't dealt with much outside it.

When I first moved here at 7, my parents were driving al over the county to see what it was like. I saw two funnel clouds in the same day. I also started to fear storms, because they seem much scarier in rural areas than urban areas :(

Also, when I was 7, I went through like 3 hurricanes. They weren't scary, but they knocked the power out and i couldn't watch TV :mad:

At 8 or 9 there was a HUGE storm that kept my mom and my sister and I up (this was when my then 6 or 7 year old sister was also afraid of storms).

At 11 I rode out Hurricane Isabel. :cool:

When I was 12 there was a very, very severe thunderstorm that kept my mom and my sister and I up (may dad was back in Washington DC). The storm had knocked the power out, and my dad called my mom from WDC to tell us that there was a tornado in my area, and travelling down a road that is very close to my house :eek:

Also at 12, Huricane Charley moved up the coast to NC and was a category 1 when it hit here. My mom and I went school shopping.

At 13 my sister was a few counties away at a softball tournament. After the tournament my parents were driving around through random corn fields (on roads through the cornfields) while there was a HUGE storm coming up (my parents thought it was cool because it was a really narrow road and looked like a scene out of Twister :rolleyes:. When we got home we started watching a movie (not Twister, thank God) and then lightning hit something near my house and screwed up the phone lines. :mad:

On Christmas Day before my 14th birthday there was a thunderstorm. It wasn't a bad one, or it musn't have been because I'd mistaken the thunder outside for the thunder in the game :p

A few months later, in April or May 2006, my family and I went out to get some pizza. We were standing outside the pizza place when there was a lightning strike very close to where we were. It scared the crap out f us and my sister choked on a Skittle. Afterward we saw 2 firetrucks racing toward the same area.

A few weeks after that, there was another ginormous storm and my neighbor's house got hit. My fear of storms worsened.

In band camp there was a storm a few miles south of the school. I was at the very center of the marching band's practice field too and all of us saw lightning and went inside.

A month after this there was a storm coming up and I suffered a panic attack. :(

A few weeks before the panic attack, Tropical Storm Ernesto had hit and school was closed. I spent the day goofing off on RuneScape saying stupid stuff liek "I just went to Cananada eh! Happy Ernesto Day!

Later around Thanksgiving there was a very bad nor-easter. The worst part of it came on a half-day, but my school system had originally put a 2-hour delay up, then it got taken down before anyone else could see it, then y neighbors who had been up early enough to see it told the whole neighborhood there was a two-hour delay, when there wasn't. I stayed home anyway because 1) it was a half day anyway and 2) the thing was another Isabel, I did not go to school during Isabel so I was not going then.

Durign the band trip to Canada there were two thunderstorms :eek:. And it was only 40 degrees. How do you guys have thunderstorms at 40 degrees?! :mad:

none the east coast of Australia getting it lately

I'm a little freaked right now...we're in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. I mean HUGE. Like...I can't hear myself talk over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof. There are severe weather warnings (http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/warnings/report_e.html?ab33) for the area, though luckily it hasn't been hailing here. Yet. I've packed a few things down in the little room under our stairs just in case, though I'm hoping it won't get much nasiter than this.

There have been a LOT of tornadoes in the area in the past few years. One trashed a community hall very close to my parent's house last year. Bizarre stuff...elders say they don't remember stories of any tornadoes out there...ever. And I'm talking thousands of years of oral accounts. I think my garden is going to be kaput after this:(

So we get flooding, and tornadoes now, but luckily no earthquakes or anything else terrible. What kind of severe weather do YOU get in your area in the summer?

I was surf fishing on a beach in South Carolina when Hurricane Hugo came through...

The remains of a hurricane came through Northern Virginia a few years back, and the storm was mildly impressive (it was a tropical storm level at that point). The power was out for about a week.

It has snowed three feet on one day, and then a few days later, snowed another three feet (back in the 1990s).

Summer here in DC has some impressive thunderstorms - occasionally houses are set afire by the lightning, and a few people are killed by it. But not nearly as impressive as thunderstorms in Georgia or Florida in the summertime.

I've seen the occasional tornado here, but once again, only F1, and not nearly as impressive as a Kansas or Oklahoma tornado.

I don't fret about hurricanes anymore. Anything below a category 3 is simply a bad thunderstorm with a side case of oceanic diarrhea.

I wish people would stop comparing hurricanes to thunderstorms, and saying hurricanes are thunderstorms. THEY ARE NOT THUNDERSTORMS! Thunderstorms have thunder (duh) and lightning, hurricanes very very rarely do. I have never seen lightning in a hurricane, tropical storm, or tropical depression. I know that one of the hurricanes that year had lightning, but lightning is uber-rare in a hurricane.

This is precisely why I only saw half an episode of Dawson's Creek. The people in the town were preparing for this hurricane but there was lightning everywhere. Needless to say, the producers obviously don't know jack abotu hurricanes, and even more obviously don't know that HURRICANES DON'T HAVE LIGHTNING! IT pissed me right off. It was a rather stupid show anyway, but the lightning in the hurricane... ugh! :headbang:

I moved to Colorado at the beginning of December last year. My son had done a creditable job of convincing me that the weather on the Front Range was good, only one or two snowstorms of any size in a winter, the rest just flurries and slush, some hail storms. Within thirty days I had experienced the first, second, third and fourth blizzards of my life. I (along with many other Coloradans) was trapped in my house for 2-3 days each time. I'm told that this was unusual.

At Easter, we experienced an ice storm that was called severe. I was driving from Colorado Springs to Denver at the time and at Monument the road became pretty much invisible and undrivable.

Coming, as I do, from Southern California, I found this just a trifle disconcerting.

You're not the only one who moved from Southern California to Colorado, though I did it five years ago now and I had only lived in California for two years, but still it was an interesting change, and a delightful one.

You're unfortunate though...you have to put up with some of the worst of the heat down in Colorado Springs. Up here in Pine we're getting off somewhat easy. I've loved this overall colder year so far and I desperately want that cold to continue.

Not really, weather, but it was the aftermath of a volcano eruption. It was weird. On dry days the air was full of sand and ash and you couldn't breathe outdoors without covering your face. Rivers flooded and as a result huge pieces of wreckage from bridges and roads, as well as chunks of glacier the size of houses were all over the place. I've never seen anything like it and doubt I ever will again.

Hurricanes Agnes, Gilbert, Barry, and Frances; 60 mph straight-line winds from a thunderstorm; a flash flood that dumped 17 inches of rain in less than a day; and a couple of blizzards. Oh, and I was in Florida when Hurricane Katrina passed through on her way to New Orleans.

I lived through the super outbreak of May 31 1985 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States-Canadian_Outbreak). We lived less then a mile from the (47 mile long) path of a massive F5 monster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States-Canadian_Outbreak#The_Niles.2FWheatland_tornado), that started out in Ohio and ended in Pennsylvania. One of the more powerful F5s ever recorded. By the time it got to our area, it was over a half-mile wide, with winds estimated at or around 280 - 300 mph. We actually watched as it went through, obliterating the neighboring town of Wheatland PA.

At Wheatland Sheet and Tube, the asphalt was scoured off the parking lot, and shards of sheet metal and routing slips were left wedged beneath the remaining asphalt. 95% of Wheatland's business and residential area were destroyed.


Then a few years ago, we had an F3 (130-150+ mph) that went through a little over a mile from where I live now. Killing 2 people and damaging or destroying almost 100 homes. There was also an F3 or F4 that came through the area back in the 20's I think.

I'm a little freaked right now...we're in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. I mean HUGE. Like...I can't hear myself talk over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof. There are severe weather warnings (http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/warnings/report_e.html?ab33) for the area, though luckily it hasn't been hailing here. Yet. I've packed a few things down in the little room under our stairs just in case, though I'm hoping it won't get much nasiter than this.

There have been a LOT of tornadoes in the area in the past few years. One trashed a community hall very close to my parent's house last year. Bizarre stuff...elders say they don't remember stories of any tornadoes out there...ever. And I'm talking thousands of years of oral accounts. I think my garden is going to be kaput after this:(

So we get flooding, and tornadoes now, but luckily no earthquakes or anything else terrible. What kind of severe weather do YOU get in your area in the summer?

... :confused: What's going on up there? Clear blue skies here. Is it really that bad? You're only an hour or so away...

I wish people would stop comparing hurricanes to thunderstorms, and saying hurricanes are thunderstorms. THEY ARE NOT THUNDERSTORMS! Thunderstorms have thunder (duh) and lightning, hurricanes very very rarely do. I have never seen lightning in a hurricane, tropical storm, or tropical depression. I know that one of the hurricanes that year had lightning, but lightning is uber-rare in a hurricane.

This is precisely why I only saw half an episode of Dawson's Creek. The people in the town were preparing for this hurricane but there was lightning everywhere. Needless to say, the producers obviously don't know jack abotu hurricanes, and even more obviously don't know that HURRICANES DON'T HAVE LIGHTNING! IT pissed me right off. It was a rather stupid show anyway, but the lightning in the hurricane... ugh! :headbang:

Obviously you didn't see the humor there. I was relating it to a thunderstorm in the sense that I will give it about as much attention as a thunderstorm.

I've seen plenty of lightning in hurricanes, granted it's meteorologically not likely, and yet I guess I'm lucky or something.

Nevertheless, I do enjoy going to the beach and watching the hurricanes coming in. There's something to be said about a black/dark grey wall of hell coming your way.

I remember being without power for five days and having to chip away at fifteen inches of ICE after the 93 Nor'easter(The Storm of The Century). And I've been through several other intense Nor'easters.
I remember that one...we lucked out and god power back after four days...other parts of my town were blacked out for over a week
EDIT: now that I think about it, I remember getting the Courant the next day, and the headline was "Hell Freezes Over!"

Noreasters, I would say I've seen just about one every winter...probably more.
a blizzard or two
several hurricanes (I was concieved during Hurricane Gloria) and tropical storms
gale winds
hale
sleet
fog (not your normal fog...I'm talking the kind where you can't see a car untill it is literally 3 inches away. And I was stuck on the roads trying to get back)
downpours
a tornado or two...

yeah. good times :)

Severe weather in the summer?

Sometimes it rains a bit. Well, often it rains, so that's not really severe.

Temperatures can reach a scorching 25-30, though.

I've never really gone through much in the way of (what I consider to be) extreme weather. We haven't had excessive (more than .5m) snow for several years, although when I was a kid in the 80s we got around a meter quite often. I also haven't seen a blizzard or whiteout conditions in several years.

I expected a crapton of snow when I moved to Colorado for a year, but I thought of the winter there are being surprisingly mild.

Probably the worst weather I've been through was when I went to Iraq in 2003. Michiganders are not made to put up with that sort of heat.

I'm a little freaked right now...we're in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. I mean HUGE. Like...I can't hear myself talk over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof. There are severe weather warnings (http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/warnings/report_e.html?ab33) for the area, though luckily it hasn't been hailing here. Yet. I've packed a few things down in the little room under our stairs just in case, though I'm hoping it won't get much nasiter than this.

There have been a LOT of tornadoes in the area in the past few years. One trashed a community hall very close to my parent's house last year. Bizarre stuff...elders say they don't remember stories of any tornadoes out there...ever. And I'm talking thousands of years of oral accounts. I think my garden is going to be kaput after this:(

So we get flooding, and tornadoes now, but luckily no earthquakes or anything else terrible. What kind of severe weather do YOU get in your area in the summer?

None, as I'm Irish and we have no weather as such, just varying amounts of rain depending on what others call "the seasons".

We get a lot of storms where I live around this time of year..but I am in a bubble. Seems to pass right over me into the next town.. the most dangerous I've experienced here is 70mph straight-line winds,which tripped the tornado sirens..about 2 minutes after it passed.

I was also in Biloxi Mississippi when hurricane George came through.

Not much really. England doesn't tend to get tornados or hurricanes or giant hail stones.

Ice Storm '98 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Storm_1998)

I lived in one of the areas hit the harder at the time (Ottawa). School was cancelled for a good week; many of my classmates were without electricity. I was one of the lucky ones. I just had to help clear thick sheets of ice and snow from the sidewalks, stairs and the family car. Most stores were either closed or sold out. We had to subsist on crap and we had very little. We had heat and electricity though which made all the difference.

I knew people who came back to school and still had no electricity.

*Reads thread full of crazy American weather*
Its been a bit wet the past month...
And a bit chilly...

Worst weather I've been out in was this new years eve - a friend and I were walking in the Lake District. Well, attempting to. We'd gone up this ridge on the lee side of quite a low hill, as the weather was somewhat rubbish. Upon reaching the summit plateau, things turned more interesting - must have been gusting Force 10, and a blinding mix of hail and rain was coming horizontally towards us. Walking was tricky at best, so a swift descent to the pub was carried out. Very invigorating!

Obviously you didn't see the humor there. I was relating it to a thunderstorm in the sense that I will give it about as much attention as a thunderstorm.

I've seen plenty of lightning in hurricanes, granted it's meteorologically not likely, and yet I guess I'm lucky or something.

Nevertheless, I do enjoy going to the beach and watching the hurricanes coming in. There's something to be said about a black/dark grey wall of hell coming your way.
Oh... sorry. :( :fluffle:

I've never seen lightning in hurricanes. You must be lucky (or, from my point of view, unlucky) to have seen that.

Hmm. When Ophelia was swirling around when I was in 8th grade, I woke up early to see Ophelia come.

It never did come, but school was cancelled that day.

So we get flooding, and tornadoes now, but luckily no earthquakes or anything else terrible. What kind of severe weather do YOU get in your area in the summer?

bundle up in a blanket and read a good book in bed. a horror or suspense would actually be enhanced by the pounding rain. :p

or watch a movie or play games.

as for Hawaii?

we get...

Tsunami
Typhoons
Tropical Storms
Hurricanes
Flash Floods
Hail (only on certain parts of the Islands and not during the summer)
Volcanic Eruptions
Earthquakes
High Surf (Very Impressive, but doesn't qualify as a Tsunami.)
and we are now in a Drought.

I live in New Hampshire. We don't have severe weather.

Kudos to the granite state.