[coastie65]

With all this weather we've had around the country, I was wondering if any members have experienced a weather event that sticks in their mind. I have had several, from riding out a Typhoon and two Hurricanes aboard ship to some snow and ice storms. I guess the two that really stick out are Hurricane Hazel in 1954 and Hurricane Isabel in 2003. I was in the third grade when Hazel hit . I remember going to school that day. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary in my mind. I remember it being overcast and muggy. About noon, we were told to go to our busses as we were going home. At that time the first and second graders were in shifts. Some went in the morning and the others in the afternoon for a half day. The bus was loaded and we were on our way home. I remember one stop, we let off some kids and there was some other kids waiting to board the bus to go to school. The bus driver while letting off the kids told the woman standing with the kids that a Hurricane was coming and the school was closed. Anyway, the first squall hit before I could get to the house and I got soaked. I remember looking out and the trees were bent double. My dad brought home a bunch of hamburgers and fries and I thought that was pretty neat, and if a Hurricane meant we'd Burgers and fries, we ought to have a few more of them. Isabel was a whole nother storm. They closed the schools in anticipation of Isabel. My nephew spent the day over here, and we were playing games. I remeber I was playing a Zelda game on the Gameboy Advance. It was in the early afternoon and the weather was getting worse by that time. I was using the power adapter and was at the door to the final boss when the power went out. It came back on and I had to work my way back to the door again, and it wasn't easy. The power went back out again and I gave up. My nephew was playing on a Gameboy Advance SP, so it didn't bother him. Right after my sister picked him up, the weather took a bad turn and started deteriorating in a hurry. We lost power for the final time about 15 mins. after they left . We had a wild night to say the least. The next morning I got up and decided to take the Dog and walk around the neighborhood. That thing had apparantly spawned a Tornado to add insult to injury and I knew that clean up would take a while. Two days later we had another bad storm come through and spawn Tornadoes. Some who had suffered little or no damage from Isabel, didn't fare so well this time. We got our power back eight days later, almost to the minute that it went off. I didn't have a grill at the time,as the one had rusted out, so I lived on Vienna Sausages and Pork & Beans mostly. coastie65

[lilxkid24]

Dont think so, no crazy tornadoes in southern California, or any crazy weather. Maybe the worst was a hailstorm lol.... Most intense weather is probably sometimes the unexpected heat one day it would be super cold and raining, then next day it will be super hot.

[snorg]

Hi Coastie
Boy you can sure write lots when ya wanna Eh?




When I was 8 years old one Calgary winter it was 60 below outside. Since I could not walk around the block and live, I wondered if i could ride my bike around the block and live, if i wasnt gonna make it all the way around the block i had a contingency plan, the short cut thru the back alley.
Long story short, i had to take the short cut.

[coastie65]

Hey snorg, I guess I did get a mite wordy. :D That was one trip arund the block I think I would have skipped. My body is built more for the Bahamas than the North Pole. coastie65

[coastie65]

Hey lil, That's the difference between an offshore breeze ( from a generally Easterly direction and warm), and an onshore breeze ( from a generally Westerly direction and cool). coastie

[mjd420nova]

Coastie: Wow, I can't really remember too many dates of some of the earliest events, but they have stuck with me. Having grown up in Minnesota, I have had two homes removed from above me by tornados in Fridley, north of Minneapolis. Quite scary for a child of 8 and ten years old. The first I was hiding in the bathtub when the roof blew off and the second I was hiding under a large wooden table in the kitchen with my sister. Typhoons are the scariest as I was below decks on a Navy destroyer in the Tonkin Gulf in 1970. Really strange to be walking on the walls. Weather extremes have toughened me up and not much scares me anymore. Having spent a week in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in the dead of winter, which I"ve done every year since 1976, the cold doesn't bother me too much, just be sure you wear everything you own. In a few cases, 55 degrees below zero F and a 25 MPH wind, you don't have much time to "admire" the scenery. actually not much to see but lots of blowing snow. I can handle the cold, just put on another layer of clothes, but the heat is the worst as you can only take off so many clothes and when you get to the birthday suit and you're still roasting, time to find a pool or garden hose and bucket. When it gets that hot here in California, I just set the hose on fine spray and sit down wind. Hails storms are what really can be deadly, as they can happen without warning and can create some unique hazards while driving. Besides breaking the windsheild and denting the sheet metal, they can cover the road and make control or just stopping almost impossible. Growing up in cold country, I learned to drive on ice pretty early, but the hail has such an unstable surface and control is beyond most anyones skills. And then you have to avoid the other cars that are having the same problems you are. The best way to avoid any serious problems is to just slow down, don't touch the brakes and keep to the right, even get off the road, unto the dirt , and then you can stop. But above all, don't get out of the car unless you like getting knocked cold. Tornados are easy when driving, just go the other way, as fast as you can.

[coastie65]

Hey mjd, I was below decks also ( B-2 Engineroom) on a 311 ' ship. it is definately a ride for sure. I did slip up to the 01 deck and got a picture. I nearly got washed overboard for my troubles. No way I was gonna try the main deck as we were taking water over the 01 deck at the time. ( for the uninitiated, the 01 deck is the deck above the the main deck ). I don't go anywhere if we get iced over. coastie

[KellieCM]

I'm from the midwest, so I've been through my share of tornadoes. I've also been through a few earthquakes, but nothing major.

[coastie65]

Hi kellie, I do remember a huge outbreak of Torndoes in Ohio some years back. I don't know if earthquakes qualify as a weather event or not, but with all the activity around the Pacific rim and elsewhere, plus the Volcano in Chile, makes you wonder what may be coming. I know if I was living near the San Andreas fault line, or another "major" fault line, I think I would be getting a tad edgy. The closest One to here is the New Madrid Fault line in S.E. Missouri ( Boot Heel). The last time that thing went was in the 1800's. It was so bad that it changed the course of the Mississippi River and rang Church bells in Charleston S.C. and Boston Mass. We had a 4.5 about 3 years ago that surprised more than a few people as we aren't even on a fault line. coastie

[mjd420nova]

Coastie: Pretty tough conditions, the boat was 468 feet long, 48 feet wide with one screw and one rudder, couldn't manuever unless you were doing at least 12 knots. Didn't try to go topside any where, those that did got the hatches slammed shut on them when they tried to get out. I did get up on the bridge and saw waves breaking over the bridge and crests higher than I was. Watched the bubble go past 45 degrees to 52 degrees and thought it wouldn't come back, but it always seemed the make it back upright. Waves broke one window and the bridge deck had a foot of water sloshing back and forth. Burned up two radar repeaters before they could shut them down. Lots of smoke amongst the choas. Some greenies thought they were going down. Earthquakes are something else altogether. Been through them in Taiwan, Japan and many in the San Fran Bay area. Not that scary but a bit unnerving. Tornados, well they are there and gone before you can comprehend what happened.

[techie4fun]

I am an Air Force Brat. I have been across the United States with a military parent more times than I plan to remember :D. With that being said, my dad was stationed at Offutt in 2001 "We were living in Bellevue, Nebraska" and had planned on going to Utah to see relatives in the summer. As you may know, the state of Nebraska is right in Tornado alley. I still remember hearing the monthly tornado siren tests going off at the first Saturday of each month. It was during the summer that we planned on visiting family in Utah which would require us to drive from Omaha all the way down to North Platte, and then drive another 4 hours just to get through North Platte. Well, our vacation was planned and after we had left our campground in the morning on a Saturday, we drove for a couple hours and stopped at a Walmart located right in North Platte. The weather was nice, but hot and muggy as usual. We did our usual "get our stuff quick so that we could have lunch and leave routine." During this time I had a terrible feeling that we really needed to LEAVE Walmart and get on the road as quickly as possible. Well, as the story continues, Tornado watches had been issued for the surrounding areas for the entire afternoon. The skies are still clear and nothing bad about the clouds. Okay, not a big deal then. Well, I'm still getting the feeling "Leave, NOW" but hadn't discussed with my family what I had been getting told inside. It was 20 minutes later that we were on the road again "we left Walmart" and everywhere you looked, the sky looked dreadful and haunting; pitch dark blue. I have never in my life seen clouds so dark blue as I did that day. Well, it turns out we were in some serious , serious trouble. Later on, the time had passed, and we had heard a Tornado warning was issued for North Platte and people had to evacuate. Had we not left when we did, we would have gotten face-to-face with an F5. We also drove through a series of storms that afternoon after we left Walmart that had produced 5 tornado's as we were driving through. Can you feel the adrenaline?
I also went through the remnants of Hurricane Ivan while living in Prattville, Alabama, while Ivan was beating up on Florida. I've had my series of storms.

[mcbarker]

I have memories of a few bad weather experiences. As a kid living in Scotland, I remember we used to have really bad gale force winds about once a year, often reaching over 100 mph. Being a kid, it was fun to try walking into the wind, leaning forward at about a 45 degree angle. Sometimes it got a little scary when slates, torn from the rooftops of 4 storey tenement buildings, would fly past you, or a strong gust would catch you from behind and send you airborne (only a few inches) for a second or two, before you fell flat on the ground.



Also, one I mentioned before in another thread (again in Scotland)... Being caught in a blizzard halfway up a two lane mountain road in a tractor trailer rig with 3 other people on board. A strong gust of wind blew our rig across the snow covered road (while we were moving), so we decided to bail out of the truck. A few minutes later, the rig was blown over the side of the road, and down a cliff. No human casualties, but the truck and its cargo (a load of antiques) was totally wrecked.



While living in Southern Mississippi, I had a near miss with a tornado. I was at work, and we could hear the hail pelting the roof of the building, so a bunch of us went out to the lobby to watch. Golf ball sized hailstones were pelting the cars in the parking lot. The sky suddenly got real dark, and we heard a loud sound like a cross between a rumble and a roar. I had only been in the U.S. for a few weeks at that time, so I didn't know why everyone was looking so worried... I was having a great time watching car windshields being cracked from the hail impacts. I found out later that the tornado had touched down about half a mile away in a local park. No lives were lost, there were no injuries, and property damage was minimal (mostly flooding from the deluge of rain that followed, and the cracked windshields and dented bodywork of the cars).

[coastie65]

Hey mjd, We were a little luckier. We were 311 ' and 41' at the beam, We did have twin screws though, thus two Enginerooms. Our berthing area was just aft of the 5" mount, and the head just forward of it and had to walk through the upper handling room to get to the head. The scuttle from our berthing area leaked due to bad seals and we were always dealing with water sloshing around in there. We had one of those inclinometers in the Engineering office. With all that radar gear mounted on the masts, you better hope you have enough ballast below to compensate, or you just may well keep on going and play Poseidon. coastie

[coastie65]

Hey mcb, While stationed on Cape Cod, we used to get those things on a regular basis. The wind gusts would shake the entire station and that thing was built pretty darn sturdy. Usually they would exit the US and into the Canadian Maritimes, from there they moved off in your general direction. I have ridden out many of those things in the North Atlantic aboard ship between Labrador and Greenland. coastie

[techie4fun]

Hi Coastie,
More storms are rolling in for my area today. Looks like they just issued a tornado watch valid until 3:00 in the afternoon my time. Most of this junk is coming in from Louisianna.

[coastie65]

Hey techie, I've been watching that all morning. Looks like a mess. I guess it'll be moving in this direction tomorrow. I think my grass is still wet, but guess I better cut the stuff while I can. coastie

[techie4fun]

I was supposed to mow my grass this morning but now it's too late :^0

[coastie65]

Hey techie, :^0 Too late ? If I'm not mistaken you are in the Fla. panhandle, which would put you in CDT, an hour behind us. :^0 They could really use that rain in Central and South Florida though. coastie

[coastie65]

Hey techie, Just got an emergency weather alert from the County in my box for hazzardous weather. They are calling for the possibility of 2+ inches of rain and Thunderstorms. This is getting old. I'd gladly give my rain to those who need it. coastie

[piyushsingh]

summers at peak here. today max was 43C and my cpu is running hot even at idle. lol .I need some snow.