What is your craziest weather event memory?

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Crafty_camper123

Crazy weather is a regular occurrence where I'm from in Wyoming. The wind contributes to most of it. Hurricane force winds in central Wyoming happen all the time. I remember vacationing in Florida one time seeing the In-Laws. We all went to this science museum. There was an exhibit wind tunnel that was supposed to show you what it was like to be in hurricane force winds. It blew I think up to about 96 MPH. There was a picture taken where my DH and I just sit there looking unsurprised, and next to us his parents are in shock by the wind machine. 96 MPH winds is called Tuesday in these parts! (Only a slight exaggeration). It's not uncommon to have days with 40-50mph sustained winds with gusts between 76-120MPH. That's just average. I've heard of gusts in localized areas much higher then that. It blows trucks over all the time, knocks signs over, tears shingles off roofs, rips buildings trailer houses apart sometimes during bad storms. Combine that with a snow storm, and you have yourself a nasty blizzard! People out here joke that they fall over when the wind actually quits blowing. The trees in my area all grow with a lean instead of straight up and down.

cwolfman13

I spent the Christmas of I believe 2008 or 2009 in Connecticut visiting my brother and sister in-law and my niece and nephew. It was unseasonably warm and didn't feel very Christmas like.

We flew home on December 30 and just before landing the pilot announced that anyone planning to head north to Santa Fe from Albuquerque needed to make arrangements for accommodations in town because the interstate was closed going north due to snow.

A lot of tourists were grumbling as Santa Fe is where most are headed. I was talking to the guy next to me and told him not to worry about it because we get a little snow in Albuquerque and everyone freaks out, but it usually melts within hours of the sun coming up and it's like it never happened.

When we got our bags and headed outside to catch the shuttle I was a little surprised because it was actually snowing...like a lot. We drove home and it was just plain nasty and we don't have a lot of clearing equipment or anything like that because heavy snow is such a rarity.

We woke up the next morning to over 2 ft of snow and it was still going through the following day. Everything came to a complete standstill for days because we just don't have the removal equipment. Pretty much everything was closed because nobody could get anywhere. The city contracted with pretty much anyone who had a tractor that could move snow. It took about a week for everything to get back to normal.

We get snow in Albuquerque, but it's typically no more than a dusting and it's usually gone by the afternoon...this was like a once in 100 years kind of storm for us. It was very cool but also kind of scary because we're just not accustomed to snow falling for 2-3 days straight and we're completely unprepared for something like that here.

TheRoadDog

SuperOrganism2 wrote: »

TheRoadDog wrote: »

I was stationed in Okinawa in 1974. A typhoon passed through. I was from Southern California and had never seen anything like it. We were restricted to the barracks, but I went outside and threw a full trash barrel into the air. It did not come down.

Where you an army artillery person by chance? My grandfather was in Okinawa for a good stretch but I think by that time he was doing missile stuff back in the USA. He and my mom talked about tsunamis that came...very, very sad. People didn't understand what was happening when all the water went out to sea and they had a really bad time.

I was in the Marine Corps. Telephone & Teletype Tech.

Lounmoun

There was an ice storm about 10 years ago. We had 2 huge maple trees in our yard crash down in the early morning hours. One barely missed the garage and house. The other took out the power line going to the house. You could hear tree after tree around town snapping and crashing all day. Everything was glittery. It was eerie.

We found out that the electric company was not responsible for the power line going to the house and we would have to get an electrician to deal with it.

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seltzermint555

Earthquakes are becoming a more frequent thing in Missouri (yikes) and the first and biggest one I ever experienced was about three years ago. We were living in a duplex temporarily and just had a new neighbor move in. Saturday morning at 7:30 am the doors of our bedroom and bathroom started shaking & rattling. I was like "WTH is this new neighbor doing over there that is so loud and crazy?" Turned out she wasn't even at home and it was a quake.

klkarlen

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I spent the Christmas of I believe 2008 or 2009 in Connecticut visiting my brother and sister in-law and my niece and nephew. It was unseasonably warm and didn't feel very Christmas like.

We flew home on December 30 and just before landing the pilot announced that anyone planning to head north to Santa Fe from Albuquerque needed to make arrangements for accommodations in town because the interstate was closed going north due to snow.

A lot of tourists were grumbling as Santa Fe is where most are headed. I was talking to the guy next to me and told him not to worry about it because we get a little snow in Albuquerque and everyone freaks out, but it usually melts within hours of the sun coming up and it's like it never happened.

When we got our bags and headed outside to catch the shuttle I was a little surprised because it was actually snowing...like a lot. We drove home and it was just plain nasty and we don't have a lot of clearing equipment or anything like that because heavy snow is such a rarity.

We woke up the next morning to over 2 ft of snow and it was still going through the following day. Everything came to a complete standstill for days because we just don't have the removal equipment. Pretty much everything was closed because nobody could get anywhere. The city contracted with pretty much anyone who had a tractor that could move snow. It took about a week for everything to get back to normal.

We get snow in Albuquerque, but it's typically no more than a dusting and it's usually gone by the afternoon...this was like a once in 100 years kind of storm for us. It was very cool but also kind of scary because we're just not accustomed to snow falling for 2-3 days straight and we're completely unprepared for something like that here.

When I was a kid in Albuquerque they would let us out early for recess so we could play in it before it melted. One morning my mom drove us to school due to snow, and got freaked out when some guy in a pickup started following her - there was maybe three inches of snow on the road. She pulled into a neighbor's driveway, he got out of his truck and said "I just wanted to shake the hand of the best damned woman driver I ever saw" and then left. What he didn't know was we had moved there from upstate NY where we had snow in feet not inches. We still laugh about it.

We had a freak 5 inch snow/ice storm in Maryland north of Baltimore in '68 and they had to shut down everything because they didn't have any equipment to deal with it, had to wait for it to melt.

toned_thugs_n_harmony

Halloween blizzard of ‘91. Only kids out in the neighborhood so people were dumping their entire bowls of candy into our pillow cases.

klkarlen

I moved to FL in July of 2004 - my research said that town I was moving to had not had a hurricane strike in 124 years. That year in September we had Frances followed by Jean two weeks later. 7 days with no power the first one, 5 days the second. I thought for sure we would have snow that winter. Just because I had moved there.

One day a strong straight line wind blew my daughter's trampoline out of the back yard. It took out part of a small tree, missed the fence, horse trailer and barn and was in pieces up against the pasture fence that is about 1/8 of a mile from where it started. I was picking up those springs for a while out in the pasture. I bet my horses were a bit freaked out when that went tumbling by.

corinasue1143

Grandkids live north of Galveston. They had real snow for the first time in their lives this winter. They were 30 minutes late for school because
Mom stopped every time they saw a little pocket of snow on the side of the road and let them get out and play--in their shorts.

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The_Canadian_Apex

While camping during a thunderstorm, my parents had a tree fall on their tent trailer just moments after they went outside to check out the storm.

Versicolour

I was little (probably about 8 or 9). My mom and I went shopping and she saw a storm coming and got us into the car. But the storm was too rough and we just had to sit in the car and watch as branches fell onto the car. My sister was home alone (and these were the days before cellphones) so the moment my mom could see to drive we raved home to check on my sister. She'd been happily collecting hailstones the size of her head and putting them in the freezer to show us.

It turns out we caught the edge of a tornado that planted caravans in people's living rooms and wrapped cars around trees

Versicolour

Oh, and one time we had about a half an hour of actual snowflakes falling from the sky. They melted as soon as they hit the ground, but it was so crazy!!

go_cubs

When I was in 5th grade we had a blizzard that had us without power for 3 weeks good thing we had no school either

rdevol

Some of these stories are incredible!

@caco_ethes: Wow! those pics are insane! What area was that in?

I'm dating myself, but the 1974 tornado outbreak across the whole Midwest stands out in my mind. I live in Cincinnati, OH. I was 7 years old. It started hailing like crazy. We were outside looking at the hail when my sister yelled "tornado!". It was at the top of our street then hooked to the right. We ran to the basement. It seemed like sirens were going off the whole rest of the night. I was terrified. My aunt's house was destroyed a few miles away. The town looked like a war zone. Xenia, OH, maybe 50 miles to the north of us, was flattened by an F-5 tornado. I still get creeped out by bad weather to this day!

On a lighter note, I remember the blizzard of 77-78 where our school was closed down for about two weeks. That was fun!

Crafty_camper123

Another one that stands out is one of our October snow storms while I was either in the 6th or 7th grade. It snowed 18-24" overnight. I was listening to the radio and the weather report came on. We were under severe winter weather warning. No unnecessary travel advised. Stay in your homes and don't venture out unless it's an emergency. I thought for sure they were going to close school, as this was a heavy wet snow. The next morning I woke up and listened to the radio again for the report of is schools were closed. Nope, school would be in session today, regular starting time. I trudged through the knee deep snow to the bus stop down the road. While on the bus, the bus slid off the road and got high centered in the ditch. We all had to sit there and wait an hour while another bus came to get us and take us to school. We didn't get to school until 10:30 am that morning.

Now-a-days it seems like these storms shut the whole town down and schools do get closed or have a late start. There was another one about 5 years back that dumped 18 inches of heavy wet snow. The mall closed at 12 that day, but the store I was working at was required to stay open. We were still making money selling chain saws, chains, chain saw lube, pole saws, snow throwers etc. left and right. We sold out of every chain saw we had in stock as this storm was breaking tree limbs off all over town. My weather memories all seem so tame compared to some on here though! I did have a tiny little tornado/funnel hovering over my house last spring. I sat at my window snapping pics and posting them to Facebook, lol. It never touched and was gone so fast tornado sirens never fired up either. We do get wind storms sometimes that send debris flying through the air and can cause as much damage as an EF1- EF2 though.

caco_ethes

@rdevol wrote: »

Some of these stories are incredible!

@caco_ethes: Wow! those pics are insane! What area was that in?

I'm dating myself, but the 1974 tornado outbreak across the whole Midwest stands out in my mind. I live in Cincinnati, OH. I was 7 years old. It started hailing like crazy. We were outside looking at the hail when my sister yelled "tornado!". It was at the top of our street then hooked to the right. We ran to the basement. It seemed like sirens were going off the whole rest of the night. I was terrified. My aunt's house was destroyed a few miles away. The town looked like a war zone. Xenia, OH, maybe 50 miles to the north of us, was flattened by an F-5 tornado. I still get creeped out by bad weather to this day!

On a lighter note, I remember the blizzard of 77-78 where our school was closed down for about two weeks. That was fun!

This happened in the upper Midwest when the Red River flooded. Which it does a lot because the damn thing flows north like an idiot.

I thought of another weather event though because of your post. In 1985 my older siblings missed a week of school because of a cold front that brought windchills of -85F (-65C). A bunch of people died of exposure in minutes.

quettabird

i was 6 - they had let us out of school early (although they didn't say why...) as i was walking home the entire sky turned black and eerily silent... i remember thinking well, if this is it, it sucked that i had to wake up and go to school today. Mount St. Helens 1980
i will always remember that one even after numerous crazy events while serving ad for 24 years.

gingerdonalds

I’m from Missouri and the crazy weather is just a part of the landscape. It’s not uncommon to see someone at the grocery store wearing a winter coat with flip flops. However, I loath ice storms and golf ball sized hail.
Thunder snow is very cool! Tornadoes are only nerve wracking when a perfectly sunny sky goes green or black and then the animals stop making any noise. We’ve had damage, but at least we weren’t in the direct path.

corinasue1143

Oklahoma. Our first big earthquake. Just a few years ago. Standing in the kitchen. Fell to my knees. No noise. Immediate thought- memories of OKC bombing, but no noise. Where's the noise? Panic. Ran to the back door. No smoke anywhere. Ran to the front door. No smoke anywhere.
Ran around the yard. No smoke. Just didn't know what to think.

Just_Mel_

corinasue1143 wrote: »

Oklahoma. Our first big earthquake. Just a few years ago. Standing in the kitchen. Fell to my knees. No noise. Immediate thought- memories of OKC bombing, but no noise. Where's the noise? Panic. Ran to the back door. No smoke anywhere. Ran to the front door. No smoke anywhere.
Ran around the yard. No smoke. Just didn't know what to think.

Did you feel the earthquake this morning??? Also, the sleet and snow. In April. Mother Nature is drunk right now.

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orangegato

1994 Northridge, California earthquake. 6.7 strength. I was visiting relatives in Northridge and asleep when it happened at 4:30 AM. Couldn't find my glasses in the dark, everything coming down from the house walls and cabinets, family huddling and praying. Scariest time of my life ever. And then when it was over, my relatives laughed and said "It wasn't the Big One." My flight left later that day and I was never more relieved to be leaving any place ever.

smantha32

caco_ethes wrote: »

We don’t get dramatic weather here so my most crazy weather memory was in April of 97. Exactly 21 years to the day, in fact.

First it snowed. A blizzard every few weeks all winter. Just shy of 120” total.



Then it melted.





Then fires broke out and ironically couldn’t be put out though surrounded by water.





And the most important part.. like a week of school missed (but without power)

Grand Forks?

smantha32

Minor stuff compared to you guys.. an ice storm in 79 that dropped about a foot of ice. 1986, 98 degrees one day then a foot of snow the next, Lightning struck a tree as I was driving by it. It looked like I was in the middle of an explosion.. minor earthquake that lasted about 2 seconds.. I've never been in a tornado but plenty of them have struck within a few streets of me. .. interesting stories.