Tornado Season.......

Kansas and Oklahoma have had a fair amount so far this year too.

 

Is this some kind of an Aussie fetish? I have a cousin who lives in Canberra, and everytime we talk, she asks me about toranadoes and hurricanes. There must be not much to do down under, eh mate?

 

I live in east texas(a place called "The Woodlands" to be exact). This year has definitely been an active storm season. I dont know any of the technical terms related to weather, but i am definitely a fan of watching the variously different types of weather. About a week ago there was a tornado about 15 miles north of where i live in a place called Conroe(and there are prisons around there, lol). Just yesterday we had a pretty serious storm front move in. There were clouds that were as low as maybe 100 yards. There was definitely some tornadic qualites to the system(winds going in every which way, bluish greenish colored clouds, etc.). And about a month ago we had one hell of a Hail storm. There were reports of grape fruit size(no lie) hail in my area. But the biggest i saw was about marble size. There was enough hail to make the streets icy though. It melts fast, but if you had to slam on your brakes, you would slide. As soon as i get a digital camera ill start taking pics of some of these storm systems. Ill post the pics up here.

I wouldnt be suprised if we get a lot of hurricanes this year. IT seems like the storms have been bigger, and started earlier than normal this summer. We usually have at least one good size flood here too. We basically live in drained swamp land.

 

We had one in the area about ten miles from me last night, but it only caused minor damage and no injuries. One passed through the area last year just a couple miles from my house, and it caused substantial damage to the area, but no human loss of life. Last month we had one in Utica, IL, which is about 90 miles away from me, that unfortunately did claim eight lives. The warning for a tornado is a loud blaring siren that lasts for five minutes, which means that a tornado has been sighted in the area. Last night was the second time this year the siren went off. They say a tornado sounds like a freight train. I have never seen one in real life though, and I don't think I would want to. My closest experience was during a summer several years ago. I looked outside through my patio doors and saw a tree falling down in my back yard. That was the only time I headed for the basement to seek cover. I found out later the path of the tornado came within a mile from my house. Just about every square yard in the area was littered with downed tree branches. Several of my neighbors had major damage, such as trees crashing through their roof. I had five downed trees and a cracked rail on my backyard deck and a dented downspout, so I came out extremely lucky. The eerie thing was that you could drive around a two-square mile area and see tremendous destruction, but once you got five miles down the road, it didn't look like it had rained the night before.

In summary, the weather around this area is definitely not boring. I've never been near a hurricane, but I imagine they're somewhat exciting also. The only other exciting weather story I have was watching my two-year old Pontiac TransAm getting trashed by a monster hailstorm in the parking lot at work back in the early 80's. All I could do was watch through a window at work like everyone else as Mother Nature had her way...

 

heres some info on some of the rain fall totals during some of our floods. Most of these totals are within a 3 to 5 day period. Ive experienced every flood in houston since 1983(year i was born ). But i really only remember the ones after about 1990. The most memorable was the 94 flood. We had to leave our house. Some of the houses around our area had water over there roofs. Theres a sizeable flood at least once a year. But we usually have a huge flood every 5 to 10 years. Just for kicks, look at the rain fall totals for TS claudette. Now thats impressive.


http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hgx/projects/allison01/prior.htm

 

I've had a real bad hurricane experience back when I was in high school. I live in hurricane alley here on the Gulf Coast panhandle in Florida. If a hurricane makes it into the Gulf of Mexico it usually gets blown north right into my town.
I woke up early one morning knowing the night before that Hurricane Erin was on the way. The storm was not supposed to hit till later on in the afternoon but the wind was already picking up and blowing all different directions. I got out of bed and clicked onthe weather channel to see what the status was. The path had not changed and it was still heading right toward us. With nothing to do but sit and wait I went and took a shower.
I stepped out of the shower in my towel and went to put some clothes on. Standing there in my room I heard a weird noise and all the trees outside started blowing REAL FAST! Bam...off goes my roof. I grabbed some shorts and threw them on as water and rain started coming into my room. Papers flew everywhere and all me and my family could do is grab what we could and leave the house. A tornado had come straight down my road and landed directly on my house. My roof was across the street in my neighbors yard.
We went to my grandmothers house around the corner and plopped down soaking wet. I wondered all day what my house was going to look like when I got back. A few hours later the hurricane really picked up and we all had to gather in the hall. You could hear branches falling and trees snapping as the wind started going nuts. I went to the front of the house t take a look. The rain was not even hitting the ground. It was blowing horizontal at a million miles an hour.
We were all getting used to the noise and joking around when a huge oak tree outside fell on the house. It cracked a huge whole in the roof and shook the whole place scaring us all half to death. All you could see out the back window was leaves and limbs. After several hours the rain and wind went away. We jumped in the car and drove back in pitch black due to the power being out all around the neighborhood.
My house looked like it had been bombed. I ran up to the backdoor and opened it. Water came flying out like a river. We had at least a foot of water through the whole house. All my fish had jumped out of the aquarium and a few were actually swimming around in the living room. The entire house was ruined and we had to save what little we could. It took us months to rebuild and get everything back to normal. No air conditioning or power for a couple months was not fun. Two months afterword we had another one hit a little bit west of us. It got up to a category 4 or 5 I believe and did severe damage to everyone along the coast. Of course nothing happened to us during that one but everytime I hear the word hurricane or tornando I have flashbacks of that whole day. As bad as it all was I still wouldn't live anywhere else!

 

I am pretty sure they are higher. My house was not totally leveled..just filled like a bucket without a lid. We have had a few pass through here since then but nothing like that one season. It will not be long before they crank back up again. I think I would rather go through an earthquake than a bad hurricane.

 

Mike, the tornados so far this year have been pretty mild(knocking on wood).

I've seen a few in person and the power is truly humbling. I was a high school student in Hesston KS in 1990 when an F5 hit our town. My family got very lucky with only minor damage to house and cars. I had lots of friends who lost everything. I'm still amazed that loss of life was not catastrophic.

Here are a couple links for you too look at.


http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ict/topten.htm The one I was in is #8

Couple a pics here: http://www.tornadochaser.com/torpics1-1.htm

 

I'm sure they do have them but it's really a matter of luck to catch one. I had one pass right behind my job once. It was a minor sized one but still had that unforgetable sound to it. If you want action head out to the beach during a strong category 4-5 hurricane and watch the surf. The ocean looks like it's boiling and the surf is uncomprehendible.