Heavy Weather

[JMcQ]

Living in Florida, I almost feel bad even chiming in on this thread. We had a cold front roll through last night, so I'm currently outside smoking in flip-flops, board shorts and a hoodie. Brutal. ?

 

[mingc]

Ran a few simple errands yesterday as the sky darkened -- some kitty litter from the grocery, some take-out lunch for my wife and me, and mailing a magazine subscription. Humdrum. However, the sky became darker and darker in the menacing way it does. My last stop was in a parking lot within walking distance of a postal mail box, about two hundred feet way. I figured I would get there and back before anything happened with the weather. Bad choice. I'd just heard the envelop hit the bottom of the post box when the wind hit me like a wall, my hat blew off, and in a few seconds buckets of rain hit me and soaked through my clothes, literally seconds, and thunder and lightning and cracking limbs were all around me. I really considered it might be my time had come. The wind was circular. I actually grabbed my hat (my much loved MM cob hat!) which wasn't all that smart in terms of time, and fought my way back to my car, dragging in much water with me. This is the most direct personal assault from the weather I have experienced in fifty years, since a typhoon in the South China Sea on a minesweeper. I think it was a tornado trying to be born. The tornado didn't quite make it, so I did. Good to be here. Anyone else having weather adventures this week?

I'm glad Mother Nature didn't take you then!

 

[stbruno70]

In Massachusetts today icy roads and high winds.

The trees were covered with heavy ice, so several big branches came down and snapped power lines. It was difficult to walk outside for all the ice shards cascading down from the trees.

We lost power. It is remarkable to consider how much we take energy for granted. I was reading by flashlight (torch) for several hours instead of pottering about on the Net and thought: this is what people used to do before electricity and, later, the internet became widespread.

Here is a photo of a large branch that crashed in front of our house. Fortunately nobody was walking by at the time.

 

[Sonorisis]

Last year, I was up in Phoenix with the purpose of measuring some materials that are stored outside. The windows were open on the car, I exited the car with my tape measure and didn't think twice about it. Nice sunny day. Calm.

I went about 50 feet from the car to the materials I came to measure and started taking measurements. Still sunny, dead calm. I got a couple of height measurements, then bent over to measure the base of one of the items. I opened the tape measure and put it down by the base. It was blurry, I couldn't make out the numbers, I thought "these damned old eyes." Then, I stood up, looked around, and found myself in the middle of a brown soup of dust. Still calm.

Then, the particles got bigger and bigger. The wind started to blow. Pretty soon, I was exposed to a 60-80 mph sandblasting. Couldn't see the car.

Made it back to the car -- which you'll recall had its windows open. Closed the windows. Then, realized the paint would be quickly sandblasted from the car if I didn't find some shelter. I set out to get close to the leeward side of a building, but couldn't see two feet in front of the truck. I moved carefully and finally ducked the car in, behind a portable building.

So, that's what it's like to be out, in a Haboob, I said to myself.

I had the same feeling as you -- this might be my time. It wasn't, but it was a PITA to clean the car afterwards.