Craziest weather you've experienced (1 Viewer)

jeremy.lankenau

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Hi all,

I currently reside in Fort Worth, TX, and with all the severe weather (tornados, hail, flooding) we've been seeing recently, I thought I'd ask the question: What is the craziest weather you've experienced? Tornados, hail, high wind, cyclones, hurricanes, blizzards, etc - let's hear it all!

For me, it was an EF-1 tornado that did some damage to houses only 3 blocks away from me. I've also seen a few tornado touchdowns while on the road, but nothing massive. On a more minor scale, my backyard has been flooded (but not my house), and I've seen hail up to softball size. The hail was actually the worst - with one nasty bugger punching a hole in my roof, through the attic, and into the nursery on the second floor. We were prepared, however, and had our infant with us downstairs at the time.

I love thunderstorms, and I'll wake up at 2 am to sit outside and watch the lightning and listen to the thunder and rain. I'd love to be in a hurricane one day (safely, of course). I don't like the damage to property and sometimes the cost of life, but there is something exhilarating about being in the path of nature's fury. After Katrina, I spent 3 weeks in Waveland, MS, helping with cleanup and with meeting people's basic needs (food, tents, medical supplies), so I'm not heartless when it comes to the after-effects.

So, what have you experienced?
 

Vassago

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Lower level hurricanes are actually quite uneventful once you've been in one. There is a lot of heavy wind and rain, but no thunder or lightening. I think the most fun I've had in a weather related event was heading out to the beach during a tropical storm a few years ago that just stayed in place off the coast. It produced a lot of wind and sea foam. It was pretty fascinating to watch for a bit, then we proceeded to the beachside pub for a pint. :D
 

jeremy.lankenau

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Pubs do make for better enjoyment of weather events!
 

kevlray

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Living in Missouri, I have seen a number of weather events. I have manged to avoid tornadoes, but have seen a few funnel clouds. There were two particular evening's where I had just returned from western Kansas (working for my uncle) just before I started college. The first evening a thunderstorm blew in. Lots of rain, thunder/ighting and wind. Lost power to the house within minutes. Did not need any lights, since there was plenty of lighting to see everything in the house. So much wind and rain, you could not see 20 feet out of a window. It broke a guy wire on our rather tall TV antenna. The second night was a repeat of the first night. Since we did not get a chance to fix the guy wire, the second storm bent our TV antenna.
 

ConnorGiles

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I saw a very very very miniature tornado once. Living in the UK that's about the craziest we get :D

Back when I was in primary school the streets were flooded to the point of my mother wading through it to walk to fetch us at school. I found that quite amusing. Motherly love ! ain't it strong!
 

AnthonyGerrard

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I saw a very very very miniature tornado once. Living in the UK that's about the craziest we get :D

Back when I was in primary school the streets were flooded to the point of my mother wading through it to walk to fetch us at school. I found that quite amusing. Motherly love ! ain't it strong!

I remember a day once - think it was about ten years ago - bright sunshine - must have been over 20C. That's crazy weather in the UK - its currently 10C, grey and drizzling.
I'm thinking of buying myself a light box.
 

ConnorGiles

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I remember a day once - think it was about ten years ago - bright sunshine - must have been over 20C. That's crazy weather in the UK - its currently 10C, grey and drizzling.
I'm thinking of buying myself a light box.

Legend has it. We're apparently going to have a good summer.
 

jeremy.lankenau

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I remember a day once - think it was about ten years ago - bright sunshine - must have been over 20C. That's crazy weather in the UK - its currently 10C, grey and drizzling.
I'm thinking of buying myself a light box.

Hah, all that normalcy sounds fine to me. In TX, the biggest temperature change I've seen in a single 24 hour period was from 35C to around 7C, thats a 50F change in one day!
 

kevlray

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I was in a city in Missouri once where on Saturday it probably was about 70 F, the next day it was in the 20's. To make it more interesting. I got to ride in a car where the heater was broke and the blower was going full blast to keep the windows clear. And all I had for a jacket was a thin wind breaker. That was a cold ride.
 

The_Doc_Man

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One Christmas, I was with my mother in Alabama. We watched the weather channel and noted that it had rained heavily in our area, but then the next day we had a hard freeze. The day after that, we had another hard rain. Just about every exposed pipe in Mom's house and mine got split.

I was in Ft. Worth when Katrina hit New Orleans. Watching that on the news was heart-wrenching because we had flooding to a depth of over 11 feet in some neighborhoods. My house got two feet, but the brother of one of the women who stood in my wedding was in the 11 foot area. He had to be rescued by a boat that picked him up at a level about even with the eaves. One of our computer operators had to be rescued from his roof and if it weren't for him having a hatchet to chop through the roof, he might not have escaped at all.

One year, Mom and Dad and I went through Texas and turned north at El Paso, heading to Carlsbad New Mexico (to see the caverns, of course). We passed by a particular road leaving El Paso. When we got to Carlsbad, the TV at the motel showed that same road having been washed out (foundation undercut) by a rain of less than 3 inches total fall. That was pretty crazy.
 

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