Extreme Weather Conditions

[Borg_Queen]

Thought I should start this thread there people can talk about extreme weather.

First about the weather here in Norway right now; The Spring has just started, and with it comes a large risk for avalanches. Some places has already been closed due to big avalanche danger. And in some of those places there it's now a high avalanche risk, more snow is falling, making the risk even higher.

PS.: Yes, even though snow do come from time to time, it's Spring now due to more melts away than what comes.

 

[Adm_Z]

Wow, I had no idea. I have lived in America most of my life, so not too much extreme weather. However, a couple years back I did drive through Nevada and they had 6ft of snow on each side of the highway

Was pretty cool. One of the guys I was with was walking on top and hit the top of a tree and fell all the way down. the show was over his head and he had to get out through one of the tunnels we had dug.

It was cool, but I don't think I had anything like that happen anywhere I lived.

 

[Majestic]

Well last year we had like 3 Red Dust storms (first on the day the site was hacked) which is unheard of for our area on the east coast of Australia. Plus we have had really hot days then really cold days this year. We are in Autumn and yet days it feels like summer and others like winter.

The weather has been really bizarre these last 12 months.

 

[SciFiFan]

Here in the US we have had record snow fall across the nation. At one point we had snow in 49 of 50 states. The only reason we did not have snow in all 50 states is because an area of Hawaii that normally did have snow, did not. It has been a bizarre winter this year.

 

[CABAL]

We didn't get any snow where I live (Oregon) this past year, but we did get some ridiculously cold weather, which I believe dipped below zero for a bit, which lasted almost a month. Considering that it isn't generally terribly cold here, it was really hard to get used to. We're also one of the few places where the rainy season is notably longer than the dry one.

 

[Pro_X]

We didn't get any snow where I live (Oregon) this past year, but we did get some ridiculously cold weather, which I believe dipped below zero for a bit, which lasted almost a month. Considering that it isn't generally terribly cold here, it was really hard to get used to. We're also one of the few places where the rainy season is notably longer than the dry one.

Hey i live in Oregon!

 

[FallenGraces]

Nothing too bad on the East coast of the US....though here (pennsylvania) the entire month of February we could not see the ground from 2 consecutive snow storms.

 

[Icewolf]

I live in Mid-Eastern Northern America, which usually (Key word there) has pretty mellow weather, though it changes quickly...as well as the temperature o.0

Then again there is a slight concern. We have at least a hand full of tornadoes that either go by or try to form through out the year around here, but this past year...nothing. Not even a hint of a half-baked formation...

...Makes you wonder what will happen this go around >.>

 

[Katala]

Australia is currently experiencing a cyclone on the North coast of Queensland, which has been downgraded to a catagory 2 instead of 3, good news for the Northern Queenslanders as it wont do as much damage as first thought, having previously lived in that area for quite an extensive period of time gettting a cyclone at this time of year is quite unusual but not so now due to the change in weather patterns as of late and being unusually warm in that area at this time of year....

More information can be found at BOM

 

[SciFiFan]

Australia is currently experiencing a cyclone on the North coast of Queensland, which has been downgraded to a catagory 2 instead of 3, good news for the Northern Queenslanders as it wont do as much damage as first thought, having previously lived in that area for quite an extensive period of time gettting a cyclone at this time of year is quite unusual but not so now due to the change in weather patterns as of late and being unusually warm in that area at this time of year....

More information can be found at BOM

Back in 1983 a hurricane formed in the Gulf just off the shore of Louisiana. It drifted west and intensified to a Category 3 and made landfall in Galveston. It was Hurricane Alicia. It formed on August 15 and made landfall on August 18. Three days is all it took to do a lot of damage to the Galveston/Houston area.

 

[thunderfoot]

I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We have hurricanes as well. Tornadoes are always a threat year round along with severe thunderstoms. From June to November we have hurricane season. As a small boy I experienced Camille. As an adult my family and I survived Katrina. Sort of. Some of my family decided not to evacuate. They are lost to me due to foolishness. If I could I would build a time machine and go back and kidnap my sister and cousins to get them to my house. My house is well above the flood plain for storm surges. This was a major criteria when I was house hunting. Still, we do not get hurricanes every single year.

 

[StarBlade]

As an adult my family and I survived Katrina. Sort of. Some of my family decided not to evacuate. They are lost to me due to foolishness. If I could I would build a time machine and go back and kidnap my sister and cousins to get them to my house.

Lost as in dead, or lost as in "dead to me", as that lovely expression goes?

We have a similar issue with flood plain housing in our ongoing quest to find a more suitable place to live. Only in our case it's a river that runs through it, not the occasional hurricane. Last major flooding was about ten years ago, but people around these parts refer to it as though it were a biblical event. And I don't blame them. I've been flooded out once before-- all it was that time was a hot water tank that burst in my parents' basement when I was six or seven, but it took them six months to repair, and it happened on the day after Christmas. They had to fetch my floating toys off the top of the water with a rake. A couple of 'em not even out of the box yet. Anyway, stuff like that sort of resonates throughout your life experience and I'd hate for my little one to have to experience something like that.... or worse.

Other than that, if we get extreme weather, it's a cold snap (or an Alberta clipper, as the expression runs). Temperatures here can get as low as -30C but that usually lasts at most a week. And you learn to adapt to these things. I've never had a problem with extreme weather unless it either affects my drive to work or produces conditions which accelerate the mating tendencies of the local mosquito population. Heat, cold, rain, sleet, freezing rain, snow, hail, flooding-- bring it on. Just as long as it's bug-free.

 

[thunderfoot]

Lost as in dead, or lost as in "dead to me", as that lovely expression goes?

The first one. The foolishness comes from thinking they could ride it out in a town which is barely two metres above sea level. Even after the rest of us begged them to get out. They lived in a place called Waveland, MS, Pop. 2500. Waveland took a 15 metre storm surge which didn't really stop until it was at the Interstate. I-10 is about 16Km north at that point. Still can't go there. Too painful. The wind looks good on the Weather Channel with some talking head standing there on the beach in wet weather gear trying not to get blown over. But the storm surge does most of the damage and nearly all of the killing. Comes up suddenly and randomly. Watched it rise 10 metres in ten minutes at one point.

Still, nearly all of us live every day with something in Nature nearby which can be dangerous or unpredictable. Those avalanches which Borg Queen spoke of sound very very scary. Same with extreme cold and snow which Canada gets. Snow is unpredictable and being snowed in does not seem like it would be something anyone would want to do a second time.

 

[Katala]

Storms and Nature itself can be quite cruel and ravishing to the land and human kind. We get a particular storm once every thirty years, it hit the year I was born when I was but a few months old and again 3 years ago and did some major flooding of the area making it impossible for alot of people to go home from work etc.

In all honesty we should have been prepared knowing the storm hit every 30years, alot of people lost homes and family, I was lucky we only lost power for a day and communications *land & cell/mobile phones* for a couple days.

My brother who was living only 2 streets away with his two young infant sons lost power for 6 days, instead of bringing his boys and food to my house he lost all his frozen food the roads were flooded pretty badly in some areas that not even my brother's 4wd could get through, we spent that evening at my mothers since she was the only person we knew to have a gas stove so we could all eat! getting back home *which was 45min drive away* became a 3hour trip trying to get through the traffic that had accumilated with all the water that was covering the roads and rapidly growing higher, I think I still have pictures of it somewhere....

 

[Borg_Queen]

Well, thanks to recent events, I can add volcanic ash cloud and ash rain to this thread. See my news thread about it. Yes, Norway has at this moment an ash cloud hanging over here thanks to that Icelandic volcano. Though it's not just Norway that is affected.

Well, as Maj mentioned the cold summer, I think I can mention something about it as well. Last summer was cold in Norway as well. First it was a normal summer, with heat waves. But after a two week heat wave, the summer almost got as cold as winter here, and other places it even started to snow.

Edit: Earlier today (21th. of April), it was snowing, raining and lots of hail came as well. Plus that the temperature outside was much cooler, I would say by 15 degrees C, than last week. All this thanks to the ash cloud.