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holy wild summer weather


me-barbie

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Now, I have always known that here on the Canadian prairies, we are at the tail end of Tornado Alley. But rarely do we have as active a summer as this!!! July 20th...we flew into a storm, jounced all over and diverted to Brandon as there was no way to land (I don't like flying and I was terrified). That storm produced 2 tornadoes and several microbursts. They ripped through a Hutterite community and a First Nation. Storage sheds at the airport were damaged and an apt block's roof was ripped off. We would not have landed safely.  Lots of damage. Next we have July 31, 4 tornadoes just over the border in SK and one did cross over to MB. Last Wednesday, Aug 3rd: 2 more hit, destroying several farms. My friend got caught by the tail edge of the storm and felt her car start to lift (yes, she was terrified) 

And now yesterday. I came home from work not feeling great so went to sleep. Woke up at 6 PM when another friend called me...the tornado warning had come over the TV. She lives in a building with no basement. At the time, it was cloudy and grumbling but nothing else. So she came over, and we moved to the livingroom (closest room to the basement). Every few minutes the warning would come over the tv. While it missed us in Dauphin, there were funnel clouds in Grandview (30 minutes west) and another one ripped through a nearby First Nation. Mother Nature...enough already!!!!

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5 hours ago, thresadep said:

I can't imagine the terror of a tornado.  Stay strong. Wish you are be safe.

 

Fortunately they are rare in Australia and certainly not where I live. I can't think of anything scarier than tornadoes and cyclones.

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I think tornadoes are more frightening than hurricanes. With the latter, there is at least some early warning and one can get out of the way. With a tornado, there's a much shorter period and a good chance of not hearing the sirens or broadcast alerts.

Lloyd, having grown up in hurricane country, has a 300-mile rule. If there's a hurricane within that radius, we leave town. No matter which way the storm is traveling. They can defy predictions, as Katrina did. When we went to bed Friday night, she was headed NE, toward Florida. By 6 am, she was headed our way. And we all know how that turned out.

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My DW was saying the other day, "Oh what a nice cross breeze..."

Then she went outside & 3 of her tomato plants (each in a large rectangular planter) had blown off the deck!  

She blamed it on mini tornado... :) 

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I moved from New York to Tennessee. In my whole life 50 years) living in NY I've only heard of one small tornado. 

Even though Tennessee isn't considered tornado alley we are in Dixie Alley. Our main season is from April through June. We have anger season in the winter months. We actually were under a tornado threat Christmas Day. 

It scares me sooo bad. The skies get so dark and scary. You just never know when one will hit. I don't think I will ever get use to it. Many local are desensitized to it but honestly, I get so crazy that my system does flips and I'm in the bathroom all day when I know we are under a watch. Forget a warning. I almost passed out from anxiety when we had no warning and lost all our electricity 10 seconds after the alerts sounded on our phones. Every one of my friends makes fun of me. I hate it.

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40 minutes ago, rodentraiser said:

I'm so jealous....we never get any exciting weather here in Washington where I live.......:dunno:

I'm jealous that you never get any exciting weather!

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As someone who lives in the middle of tornado alley and regularly sees hail the size of small vehicles within a 50 mile radius, I understand why you'd want Mother Nature to take a vacation!  I have become a big chicken in my old age - we used to love to chase storms, even took Storm Spotter classes, but now you'll find me in the bathtub with the cats.  They don't really understand the whole "cover yourself with a mattress" thing, either.  :0/  We have been blessed that all of the tornadoes and bad hail storms have missed us, but my kids' homes have been affected and it's terrifying when you know the grandkids are in harm's way.  No basements here, just old stinky storm shelters with who knows what inside.  

I'm with you, Barbara.  I am getting too old for all this excitement!

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And then there are good old hurricanes. 35 years in south Florida and although we have had to prepare for a few, I've only been in the eye of one, Wilma.  Our homes are like concrete bunkers with strapped roof systems, reinforced garage doors, steel shutters and doors that open out, so I feel safe enough in a Category 3 storm. However,  I'm glad we get enough warning so we can get out if a Cat 4 is headed our way. That's the big difference, we get advanced warning. I don't think I could live through the constant worry of living in a tornado or earthquake zone.

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Well, I have to admit, both times when I went through 2 large earthquakes (Loma Prieta 6.9 and Nisqually 7.1), I was in a fairly safe place. If I had been in Seattle during the Nisqually quake, I'd probably be jelly. I saw pictures of how the buildings pancaked during the Mexico earthquake of 86, I think it was, and if I'm in a tall building, I'll take my chances outside with the falling debris.

However, here in my town it seems explosions are the big thing. We had someone jump out a window in a motel about a mile or two from where I live and break a main, and that caused half the motel to blow up. No one was hurt, fortunately. And a while back, a couple who was moving decided to disconnect their dryer or some such and ended up blowing up their triple wide mobile home. Debris went 25 feet into the trees and I heard the WHUMP all the way over here 10 miles away. I live in an old building, so not only do I worry about that, but here the floors are so out of alignment, it feels like you're walking up and down hills going into some rooms. This building was here before modern plumbing and when I take a bath, I'm always worried the bathtub is going to break through the floor and I'll end up in the basement 4 floors down. LOL Seriously, I don't think the floors were meant to take the weight of the tubs and toilets, since walking into the bathroom is like running downhill.

You can see why I'd rather have weather provide the excitement in my life!

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When I was 15, we were living in Victoria. I remember Mt St Helens blowing. It shattered the plate glass doors to our apartment complex. We also had multiple tremors (and BC is over due for a big quake ). I  remember Mt Baker spewing mud too. I  honestly don't know which is worse tornados  earthquakes or volcanos. Seems Mother Nature is a you-know-what  and barely tolerates us!

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2 hours ago, me-barbie said:

When I was 15, we were living in Victoria. I remember Mt St Helens blowing. It shattered the plate glass doors to our apartment complex. We also had multiple tremors (and BC is over due for a big quake ). I  remember Mt Baker spewing mud too. I  honestly don't know which is worse tornados  earthquakes or volcanos. Seems Mother Nature is a you-know-what  and barely tolerates us!

Maybe She's just getting back at us for all the nasty things we've done to Her...

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I always thought I was so safe living on the peninsula, thinking if Ranier blew one day I'd be safe. That's before I found out that the gas and steam can roll across water faster than they can roll across the ground.

Then there's this:

http://data.kitsapsun.com/projects/2016/01/06/earthquake-on-the-seattle-fault/

Here's a couple of excerpts if you don't want to read the whole thing:

The worst-case scenario for Kitsap is an earthquake grinding out of the fault right under our feet. Starting from Seattle’s eastern suburbs, the 43-mile-long Seattle Fault runs under Puget Sound and across south Bainbridge, East Bremerton and Central Kitsap before slipping under Hood Canal.

Unlike a Cascadia quake, which would keep its devastating waves a safe distance from Puget Sound, the Seattle Fault’s tsunami would send towering waves straight at Kitsap’s shores.

Bremerton (would have) the highest average building loss ratio. About 45 percent of building value in the city will be lost by a 7.2-magnitude Seattle Fault quake. A few buildings named in the assessment as likely losses are Bremerton High School, the downtown library and post office, and the Kitsap Way fire station.

 

and this:

The Kitsap Peninsula has been marked as one of the hottest danger zones in the United States where a high-magnitude earthquake could occur. A major earthquake on the Seattle fault – which stretches from Bellvue, through Bainbridge Island, Bremerton and Port Orchard – could create a tsunami that would inundate many of Kitsap’s shoreline areas. The Kitsap Peninsula is in a zone that could be affected by a subduction quake, like the one that shook Chile earlier this year.

 

Guess where I live? Yeah, a block away from the waterfront. That library and the PO they talk about? About a block away from me in the other two directions. That's why I like wild weather. Earthquakes ain't weather. LOL

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2 hours ago, rodentraiser said:

I always thought I was so safe living on the peninsula, thinking if Ranier blew one day I'd be safe. That's before I found out that the gas and steam can roll across water faster than they can roll across the ground.

Then there's this:

http://data.kitsapsun.com/projects/2016/01/06/earthquake-on-the-seattle-fault/

Here's a couple of excerpts if you don't want to read the whole thing:

The worst-case scenario for Kitsap is an earthquake grinding out of the fault right under our feet. Starting from Seattle’s eastern suburbs, the 43-mile-long Seattle Fault runs under Puget Sound and across south Bainbridge, East Bremerton and Central Kitsap before slipping under Hood Canal.

Unlike a Cascadia quake, which would keep its devastating waves a safe distance from Puget Sound, the Seattle Fault’s tsunami would send towering waves straight at Kitsap’s shores.

Bremerton (would have) the highest average building loss ratio. About 45 percent of building value in the city will be lost by a 7.2-magnitude Seattle Fault quake. A few buildings named in the assessment as likely losses are Bremerton High School, the downtown library and post office, and the Kitsap Way fire station.

 

and this:

The Kitsap Peninsula has been marked as one of the hottest danger zones in the United States where a high-magnitude earthquake could occur. A major earthquake on the Seattle fault – which stretches from Bellvue, through Bainbridge Island, Bremerton and Port Orchard – could create a tsunami that would inundate many of Kitsap’s shoreline areas. The Kitsap Peninsula is in a zone that could be affected by a subduction quake, like the one that shook Chile earlier this year.

 

Guess where I live? Yeah, a block away from the waterfront. That library and the PO they talk about? About a block away from me in the other two directions. That's why I like wild weather. Earthquakes ain't weather. LOL

That is certainly terrifying!

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7 hours ago, rodentraiser said:

Well, as a former Californian, I just can't find it in me to be all that worried. What comes will come.

I am, however, scared poopless of wildfires.

I lived in Ojai during the 1985 Ojai fire. Our house survived but I'll never forget the freight-train roar of the fire as it crested the hills behind our place and poured down the hillside toward us. We'd moved the horses into the heart of the orange grove, a relatively safe place as orange trees hold a lot of moisture and don't burn readily, but the acreage adjacent to the house was planted in avocado trees, which hold a lot of oil, ignite if you glare at them and burn like a dried out Christmas tree. Never mind the huge palm tree that our landlord hadn't gotten around to denuding of beaucoup dried fronds looming over the cedar shake roof. Scared? Yeah. The cars were loaded with important stuff and we were ready to flee, but the brave and exhausted firefighters managed to prevent the fire from reaching the avocadoes. I don't miss California.

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That is so scary, Kathie. I've been through a couple of fires in California and even helped out on the one that came close to Los Gatos when I was working with DART. But my first instinct is to run and run fast. I don't know how homeowners can stay and spray their houses with water with a fire coming at them. I see so many houses here in Washington with trees over the roof. I keep thinking a couple dry summers and this whole peninsula would be like a bunch of matches burning up if a fire ever started.

What kind of horses do you have?

By the way, Barb, in case you're still having wild weather, I don't know if it helps to know that heat is the number one weather killer, more than wind, hail, tornadoes, floods, etc.

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