West Coast Storms

[jimk]

JimK, currently from Tornado Alley, KS

I lived in Lawrence for a summer. I thought Springfield, MO was bad! Seemed like every other night the clouds would roll in, the visible sky would become green and God would momentarily turn his back on that part of Kansas. And then in 30 minutes everything would be okay. Bizarre.

Yeah, May and June can be like that. The only word that I can think of is "amazing"; jaw-dropping, had-to-have-been-there amazing.

JimK

[beatlefreak]

Wow - That's quite a picture. Hang in there, guys.

[jps]

Our flight out of JWA was delayed due to the tornado; we had to sit in the plane for about an hour. I certainly do not recall tornado warnings when we lived out there in the '80s!

[kiramdear]

I've lived here almost all my life and I don't remember ever hearing of tornadoes or waterspouts in California.

[doctorwho]

Here are a couple of shots taken at work on Monday:

Note the spray from the cars going through the pools of water.

On Tuesday we had high winds that knocked down two large eucalyptus trees down the street on Redhill that blocked traffic for a while.

[Bighouse]

I don't mind the hard rains and the thunder and lightning- they're actually fun and remind me of my youth when living in Michigan...used to love to stay out in the screened porch and watch the thunderheads and storms roll over.

It's the wind that scares me! I live amidst some pretty tall redwoods and douglas fir trees very near my house...many within easy striking distance. And, when the winds really kick up you can see a 200 foot tall tree that's got a trunk 3 or 4 feet in diameter sway back and forth by about 7 degrees or so...it's SPOOKY. Then you get to hear the sudden "WHACK" sound as a branch breaks and the resulting "widowmaker" falls to the ground, or worse, your roof below...I remember hearing and FEELING a tree fall atop a garage a few years ago two houses down from mine. VERY odd sensation when the ground moves like a drumskin from a VERY large drumstick (about 3 feet in diameter)...Sliced right through the garage like a laser and flattened the car inside.

About the only lingering bad result of the rain (which we really need in California- we're still in a drought) for my town is that it floods from time to time and we get to make the national news. The hill my house is atop becomes an island for a few days and most of us are without power for a week or so...then the town has to rebuild a bit...

oh no...lights flickering....

[cjj]

I've lived here almost all my life and I don't remember ever hearing of tornadoes or waterspouts in California.

I saw a waterspout once when I lived in San Clemente, sometime in the early '70s, looked almost exactly like that picture. Dumb kids that we were, we were standing on the beach, just watching it come in, luckily, it dissipated about the time it hit the waves, a couple hundred yards from us. The salt water rain was weird though...

[ajish4]

Oh yeah,

This bad boy came to visit us a few years back. Made the local news too. It started to form about 4 or 5 houses away from us.
The noise it made was unforgettable.

A wee rainstorm, notice the position of the bench by the lake before and after the rain?

THIS is what freaks me out.

Just another day in Paradise!

[cjj]

Ya see? That's why I live in this gawd awful place...

Oh wait, we get the occasional twister here too, only it doesn't rain salt water, just 2 to 3 inch hail...

[notviceversa]

here a few photos from the other day at the factory.

[notviceversa]

a few more.

[winston]

Wow that is awful. Did you get any water ingress on the shop floor Richard?

[cjj]

Wow! Did you get any flooding in the building?

[jimk]

Heavy rain, the threat of tornadoes, it's all pretty common stuff here in Tornado Alley. Even rainwater ankle deep in the streets sometimes because the storm drains can't handle it happens from time to time. Basements have sump pumps, something I suppose like the bilge pump in Kira's boat.

An interesting bit of weather trivia that I learned; Lawrence, KS gets as much average yearly rainfall as Portland, OR. The difference is that it will rain 1.5 inches in Lawrence in a matter of an hour, whereas in Portland, they get it spread out over a week's time.

It all makes one feel so puny, so powerless. Probably a good thing or else we'd get too big headed.

JimK

[notviceversa]

The water stayed outside of the factory. If the water rose about another foot there might have been some water on the factory floor.