Was thinking it might be nice to have a thread where we all could share weather events that are affecting each of our regions.
We have had one of those spring weeks of fun thunderstorms. Fortunately, we have had no tornadoes but we have had some serious straight line winds. This past Tuesday night’s storm skirted our town but hit one 25 miles away with 120mph winds and enough hail that they called out the snow plow trucks to clear the highway. That town of 10,000 people was completely out of power for a couple of days. A large grain facility (the size of 2 to 3 football fields) was completely flatten. Gas station canopies were collapsed. Telephone poles snapped like toothpicks. Several roof damaged homes.
Wednesday’s storms not as bad; however Thursday’s storm produced a large tornado down by Midland. Lucky for them that it was mostly over open country but did clip the town.
Friday night’s storm clocked 91mph winds and hit our town. Most of the town lost electricity except on 1 block wide strip in the running through the middle of town. It caused typical roof and tree damage along with power line issues. We had put up a metal frame canopy over the garden area ( 12 x 20 feet) this year. The wind caused one side to be pushed out ( leaning out ) about 6 inches. Rain amount was 1.5 inches in 45 minutes blowing in horizontally.
Tonight and tomorrow night will bring more storms to the area.
Stay safe and hoping for some relief in your area. I believe Texas has the largest variety of damaging weather of any state.
Still in the low 60s here which is my favorite temp for spring. Gonna move to upper 60s next week. Hoping for more rain to quench BC and Alberta fires so smoke will stay away this year. Also hoping Mid-West can get some Tornado relief.
Until this past week, all the action was on the east side of Texas 600 to 800 miles away. This week has been the week for what they call the South Plains which is the bottom area of the Panhandle.
What we didn’t mention earlier about this last Tuesday was that the hail size got up to grapefruit size … that’s about 5 inch round hail stones that was being thrown at the ground with that 120mph wind.
A friend’s almost-new Subaru sustained hail damage into the multiple thousands of dollars of body work in Hudson, NY a few years ago. The hail was not so big, but she had no garage, which most houses built in 1906 lacked. Her insurance company covered all repairs and she even got a complete color photographic record from the body shop, every step of the way, and is still driving that Subaru at her new home in CA.
Ya … hail this size tends to go right through your roof, walls and windows …
2017 hail storm totaled our sons car … windows were gone and the body looked like the car had rolled over with crushing type dents.
We had a freak hail storm here in Queens NY in 2011 or 12 (can’t remember). Bigger than baseballs. Needed a new roof as did every home in a 2 square mile radius and had a couple cars ravaged. Total damage - $79K for us. Insurance covered everything thankfully.
One of our cats had a heart attack or stroke and died during the event, getting freaked out by the hail smashing the roof.
Weather… lucky for me, I had video cameras!
I distill an all-natural product made from certified-organic ingredients. To keep costs low, and to have a zero carbon footprint, I have an array of tracking parabolic solar trough collectors, which heat circulating propylene glycol to nearly 1000 F, which then makes steam to run the stills via heat exchangers.
I rented space at Floyd Bennett Field, a decommissioned airport at the far southern end of Brooklyn NY. Hurricane Irene came along in 2011, and took the roof off, and the solar array went with it, likely ending up smashed into scrap metal somewhere in New Jersey. Got the whole thing on video as the camera kept filming until that part of the roof came off, so insurance paid.
Rebuilt (by hand, I do my own welding and fabrication) and then Tropical Storm Sandy came along the very next year, and not only took the roof off the hanger, but the storm surge emptied the hanger to the walls. I had just taken delivery on two pallets of cardboard cartons, too. Again got it all on video, so insurance paid. But I lost everything.
So, screw the waterfront location, I moved to an old warehouse in the Bronx, and later, to New Jersey.
But while parabolic collectors can survive high winds well, old roofs often don’t.
Much south of Queens NY, we had a severe hail storm here in Spring 2011. We sheltered in our tornado safety spot in our basement level. We couldn’t hear it hitting the roof two stories up because the sound of it battering the garage doors next to us was deafening. I was pregnant with kid 2 and was shielding kid 1 (now a newly-adult high school graduate!) with my body. I was convinced by the sound of it that all our windows had failed and hail would come spilling forcefully down the basement stairs, drowning us if the blunt force trauma didn’t kill us first.
It was short but terrifying. A core memory for kid 1.
We needed a new roof, new shutters, interior repair from roof leak damage, new back deck, and new front windows…and I had to go on bedrest during reconstruction, AND the owner of the roofing company tried to shake me down for more money than agreed and immediate direct payment rather than via insurance after inspection (he was unsuccessful lol).
It’s only been in the past couple of years that we have stopped seeing “hail cars” that were severely damaged, totaled out and paid for by insurance, but still driveable.
I’ve been through tornadoes, blizzards, ice storms, mountain hurricanes (mountain waves), severe heat, wildfires, flooding, drought, extreme cold–but that hail storm was hands down the most immediately terrifying. No cap.
Daughter and I drove from Texas to Oklahoma on Thursday and got to see firsthand the damage in Sanger/Valley View from the tornado. It was truly something to behold - I don’t know that I’ve ever seen so clearly a path of destruction like that. Just everything flattened. The Shell station that’s been on the news is right next to the highway.
So far so good (aka cool) in SoCali. May was 60s - 70s, June has been / is predicted 70s for at least another week. I’ve been doing a bunch of yard work and landscaping since January, hope to finish before July heat comes in.
Neighbor jokes that we live in a “weather hole” where the mountains to the west knock down any storm tracking due east, which has proven to be a reliable statement. This looks like it was just your run of the mill summer pop-up storm resulting from rising humid air.
Nothing fancy, but yes, there are 3 stills, 2 active at any one time, for a smooth process flow. The solar array puts out about 35kW of steam, so it is among the larger steam plants not run by a power company.
To our SellersAskSellers friends “out west” in Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho–triple digit heat is no joke, from those of us from the Deep South, especially when it sticks around for more than a day.
At home, please watch the weather, prepare and plan, and be mindful of pets both indoors and outdoors. Hydrate yourself and animals more than usual (even if you’re not thirsty), minimize electricity usage to not overload the grids, consider a generator, find out ahead of time if your community will offer cooling stations and transportation, stock up on ice packs and other first aid supplies, and stay indoors. Check on your neighbors.
At work, consider offering a water or cooling towel to your carriers and delivery persons, and a chance to sit under a fan for a minute. Make back up plans for getting orders out and increase expected handling times. Watch yourself and co-workers for signs of heat stroke or heat exhaustion. Encourage WFH if you can.
We were visiting Scottsdale several summers ago, to see the Grand Canyon, among other things, and the older man at the car rental counter kindly offered us (clueless New Yorkers) all kinds of advice about visiting AZ in hot weather.
We survived, but I learned to put a towel over the steering wheel when parking the car. It was too hot to touch otherwise.
My life-long habit of parking at the far reaches of mall parking lots, to avoid damage to my car and get a bit of exercise, did not work so well in the AZ summer.
A friend in AZ whose husband owned a chain of tile stores always had free cans of soda and bottles of water in galvanized tanks right inside the entrances–it was good business, he told me.
The temperature got up to116 degrees last time I visited, considering moving there and looking at houses. I found an acceptable house, but got outvoted by 2-1.
My son still uses AZ water and weather-related articles to tease me about wanting to move to Scottsdale. I might have liked it, but he is probably right.
To our SellersAskSellers friends “out west” in Texas, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho–triple digit heat is no joke, from those of us from the Deep South, especially when it sticks around for more than a day.
