worst storm you have ever witnessed?

[Zuni]

Now that it is hurricane season, I thought i'd ask

[agates]

1. An F5 Tornado

About a mile from my house. I'll never forget it.

[Zuni]

14. I once had a small tornado rip up my backyard

but it was nowhere near an F5. I watched a tornado special on HBO, and a F5 was enormous

[Burma Jones]

2. Hurricane Camille

From east of New Orleans, west of landfall.

[Zuni]

7. I was just reading about Camille

215 mph gusts. They called it the most intense storm ever recorded in North America

[Rowdyboy]

19. 120 miles inland from Camille, and it was STILL the baddest-ass

storm I've ever experienced.

[guitar man]

3. May 3, 1999 Tornado

Here in Oklahoma. The most powerful ever recorded.

[Zuni]

20. I just looked it up

there were many tornadoes touching down all over Oklahoma, including several f5s.
Worst Tornado outbreak ever witnessed

[guitar man]

28. that's correct

The F5 that tore through Moore that day had the highest wind speed ever clocked. There was a debate among meteorologists about wheteher an F6 classification should be created to describe it. I remember the day all too well, there were Tornados everywhere. I was very concerned about my parents sinc my Father has a diminished capacity due to his heart and my mother is wheel chair bound. They made it through, thankfully.

[indepat]

4. Betsy in New Orleans Sept 1965, nine days after we bought our first house

[markus]

22. Betsy, as a first grader

I can still visualize almost perfectly the giant oak that went down a few houses away. We had 4x8 plate glass windows all along the first floor, but they made it.

We actually evacuated Lake Vista and went to my Great Aunt's apartment on Royal Street (now the Hove' Parfumier).

I have cousins in Waveland, who lived just the bay side of the real road tracks. I saw the aftermath, but hope never to "see" a Category Five storm.

[virgdem]

5. Typhoon Omar in Guam in August 1992

A cat 5 Typhoon left $700 million in damage to this tiny island.

[9119495]

6. Storm Thurmond

Yes, I know it's lame but I'm tired.

[Dzimbowicz]

35. From the Palmetto state...

I must agree; and, no it's not that lame.

I experienced Hugo in 1989 and although I was not on the coast it still beat the stuffing out of my town (Columbia). I also experienced a typhoon while I was a jarhead on Okinawa in 1980.

VETERANS FOR PEACE
www.veteransforpeace.org

[Renew Deal]

8. 1985 Gloria

The others had almost no serious impact in my area.

[Zuni]

16. I remember Gloria

I was a kid at the time. We got out of school for a day or two.

[Renew Deal]

18. Me too.

I was 9

[bigwillq]

49. Gloria was probably the worst for me too but

it really wasn't all that dangerous when it finally got to CT.

There was a T-Storm maybe about 10-12 years back that spun off a few tornado in the surrounding towns.
Luckily, we weren't hit by a tornado but I think the winds and rains were worse than Gloria.

[Fuzz]

51. I went sailing with 3 friends on a catamaran a couple days after Gloria

on the Long Island Sound. It was NUTS.

There were a handful of regulars on the beach that day all trying to head out because the wind strong. They were all flipping over on the beach though and we were the only ones that made it out that day, scores of people just watched certain that we would die.

We had the sail full out, no spinnaker, 3 guys totaling about 500 lbs. hanging off the side and we were still up on one pontoon the whole way. The waves were so big we couldn't even see in front of us, some almost as tall as the mast.

When we came back, one big wave just lifted us up and slammed us on the beach.

We stayed out for only like 30 minutes or so, but it felt like hours. We were all exhausted.

I would NEVER do that again. Crazy stupid shit.

[Kid_A]

9. The line in the first X-Men movie about toads and lightning.

That was a pretty bad Storm.

[alittlelark]

10. The most interesting was in ABQ last month.

Rain came down sooo hard I had to pull over 3 times in 1/2 mile, Dad's back yard (in the heights) was 2-5" deep H2O, and manhole covers blew out onto the road! Pretty amazing, and the rain lasted an hour or so.

[Beware the Beast Man]

11. 2 massive storm cells that blew through Pittsburgh.

Back in 1998. Not big by many standards, but the biggest I have personally witnessed. There were tornado warnings all over the place; and I lived in an area that was not prone to tornado activity. One actually touched down on Mount Washington, which overlooks the city.

[No Mandate Here.]

23. This was the same storm that destroyed

most of Salisbury, in southern Somerset County. The tornados were on a straight line for about 100 miles- after they formed over Mt. Washington- pretty much due Southeast all the way into Maryland.

The other storm was the March 1993 blizzard, where we got 50" of snow in about 24 hours. Closed us down for a week.

[Beware the Beast Man]

24. Oh yes, I remember that one.

And the following year's blizzard as well. I was going to school in Clarion that year. The campus was shut down for a week.

[Zuni]

27. I remember some fierce winter storms

they can be some of the worst

[NuckinFutz]

12. May 1999...tornado in OK

the biggest and nastiest in history. Would've been classified as category six if they went that high. Missed my house in Del City by about two-three blocks. Tore the hell out of a big strip of OK.

[Nite Owl]

13. Hurricane Gloria

I think that was in 1986. We lost power for over a week and had no water. Huge trees were literally twisted out of the ground. South Shore of LI.

[Cha]

15. First and only Hurricane Iniki all Over

the Island of Kauai on Sept.11,1992!

A cat 5..here's some words from the Honolulu Star..

http://starbulletin.com/2002/09/08/news/index5.html

[lilymidnite]

17. Tornado ...

in Salt Lake City. weird

[blindpig]

21. sat out a hurricane on the Outer Banks

about 85-86. Storm tacked a last minute and whacked Wilmington. Ignored mandatory evacuation, I paid a lot for that week(what a maroon). We were in Avon, in a rental on stilts. House undulated! Been there, done that, never again!

[Squeech]

25. 1978 blizzard

About three feet of snow. I was in Providence RI when it started (visiting my then-girlfriend at Brown) and got on a bus to get back home to Boston. The bus didn't even make it a mile from the station. I got off and hoofed it back to the Amtrak station; the train did make it to Boston.

I was "working" as a freelance writer for a weekly newspaper at the time, and a couple days after the storm, when much of the snow was still on the ground (and in the streets), I delivered an article to an editor's apartment, on foot.

[ironflange]

26. Summer of 2000

On a flight from Calgary to London, we had to fly around the supercell that spawned the tornado that ripped up the campground at Pine Lake. This thing was so big that you had to twist your neck but good to see the top of it from the plane's window. Fortunatley, I wasn't actually in the storm, but I did see it.

[Pithlet]

29. The bow echo system

that ripped through Memphis July 2003. I thought a tornado was bearing down on our house when I looked outisde. I've never witnessed winds so hard. The big sign advertising new homes behind our house was ripping apart and debris was flying through the air. It sounded like someone was blasting the side of our house with a fire hose at full blast. The winds were up to 100+ miles per hour. No warning. The area suffered extensive damage and we were out of power for 6 days, and some were without for weeks. They said it was just like an inland hurricane, and they're very rare. It was jokingly called "Hurricane Elvis". I'll never forget it because I was pregnant with my second son, and going without air for a few days in the south in July was very difficult.

[Xithras]

33. We don't typically name storms in California

Here in the Central Valley we do occasionally get ferocious windstorms when a low level jet stream lines up just right between the mountain ranges. I've seen 75MPH gusts and tornadoes off of those (the Central Valley does typically see a couple funnel clouds a year, but it's pretty rare for them to touch ground).

Other than that, I once survived a hailstorm that dropped golfball sized hailstones.

[Pithlet]

39. Really?

We even name our thunderstorms although we're running out of names pretty fast. Life must be pretty dull in California.

[Xithras]

45. Naw, we name our earthquakes. Storms are just a sideshow ;-)

Off the top of my head, the only weather related "phenomena" that has a name out here are the Santa Ana's, and that's more of a generic name given to a repeating weather pattern, and not a single event.

Even our floods are usually caused by overly long periods of sustained, gentle, and unimpressive rains, rather than the torrential downpours that cause flooding in the rest of the country. We do on rare occasions get hit by the remnants of tropical storms via the Pineapple Express, but even those have long since lost their tropical storm status (the golf ball sized hail was from one of those).

Of course, most us us APPRECIATE the uninteresting weather when we look at the crap the rest of you go through. I'll take earthquakes any day :7

[Pithlet]

46. Not me.

Earthquakes are too unpredictable and they come without warning. Even if a storm is more devastating, at least I can see it coming (usually) and prepare. It's a psychological thing, I know. Really, I'd rather experience neither :)

[Xithras]

50. But they're rare and 99% do absolutely no damage

Florida residents have lived through more storms in the last month than I've experienced earthquakes in my entire life, and I was born here 30 years ago. Big (5.0+) earthquakes happen, on average, only about once every two years, and in a state that 770 miles long the odds of you being near any one of their epicenters are very small.

Quakes don't really start worrying me until they get past the 6.5 mark, and those are very uncommon.

[Pithlet]

54. I readily admit

that is it psychological on my part. Kind of like my phobia about spiders. And, I can't say that I entirely live in an earthquake free zone. I am close to the New Madrid fault. I guess it's just the Gotcha! aspect of earthquakes that unsettles me.

[Cheswick2.0]

30. Andrew

[miss_kitty]

31. here in WA state

we had the columbus day storm in 62, that killed people. in 79 i was on a boat in Olympia when 100 mph winds blew down the Hood Canal Bridge. also a couple years later on thanksgiving, a storm blew through and knocked out the electricity in the western half of the state. i was in New Orleans when a storm blew threw Seattle and sunk the I-90 bridge, and missed a big blow when i was in Blighty, on Inaguration Day 1992, that they still talk about here.

[flamingyouth]

32. Our Inauguration Day storm in 1993

Seattle had its worst storm since Columbus Day 1962. I lived on the 12th floor of an apartment building, and sheets of plywood were flying past my window. I'm not sure how hard the wind was blowing, but it was intense, to say the least. Before my cable went out, I was at least able to watch some of Clinton's inauguration. :)

[miss_kitty]

40. was the '93 storm worse than the storms that took out

hood canal bridge and the I-90 bridge? and the thanksgiving storm that killed the power in western wa?

[flamingyouth]

41. I don't know - I of course remember those as well

Naturally. ;) But that '93 storm, I don't know if it was because I was living in a high rise or what, but I've never seen such wind in my life. My parents lived through the '62 storm, and they said they thought it was the worst since then. But I bet we could look it up. Surely there's a weather-geek website out there with this type of info! :)

[miss_kitty]

42. i am actually old enough to remember the '62 storm...

...:(.

you weren't even a gleam in your parents' eye then, were you? :)

[flamingyouth]

43. My parents had just started dating

And they were "out for a drive" while it was going on. Apparently, my mom's father about killed my dad when they got home. :)

[curse10]

34. Hurricane Alicia (Galveston/Houston)

I saw her take my swingset and throw it into the neighbors yard. :-(

[TrogL]

36. Category five tornado

Ripped up the east side of Edmonton Alberta. Several dead. Massive damage. Saw the funnel off in the distance. I was a police volunteer for the cleanup.

[DrWeird]

37. Not the biggest, but the coolest...

Me and my friends went hiking one fall day a couple of years ago on Marys Peak. It's only 4,000 ft. but it's the highest in Oregon's Coast Range. It was raining really hard, but it was still a great, if wet, day for a hike. What I didn't know was that my friend had seen a weather report and there was this huge storm coming in off the coast which was supposed to hit really hard.

So we climb up this mountain on the leeward side through big old douglas fir forests. As we get close to the top it literally sounds like there's a 747 flying a couple hundred feet overhead. We reached the top, which was all meadows and no trees, and the force of the wind had to be close to 100 mph. I've been in 100 mph winds before but had never just walked into it by getting to the top of a hill. Of course the rain was horizontal and stung like hell. It was freezing cold and you could barely stand up. You could watch little parts of clouds rush up over top of you and down the other side of the mountain in seconds. It was one of the most extraordinary things I'd ever witnessed.

Coming back down the trail there were these huge old trees that had been blown down on the trail we had just hiked up. The smell of the needles and the bark were so strong and vivid that they were indescribable.

[AlFrankenFan]

38. Pretty bad tornado in 1995 or 1996 in Northern VA and..

a blizzard that occured in 1995 in Northern VA. It was so bad...we had to walk through a quarter of a mile of snow to get to our home after the car broke down. Being 5 I though it was some scary shit.

[Misunderestimator]

44. From where I was sitting, Frances... but there were some pretty

amazing Noreasters in NY... and the hurricane (I can't remember which, but it was in the mid-80s, maybe '86) that reached NYC was a bear... in retrospect, it seemed much worse than Frances.

[politicat]

47. Born during a blizzard in 76 and it's been the same since??

Only reason my mother got to the hospital is my uncle drove a snowplow for the county and he knew I'd been thinking about making an appearance for about 2 months. (I was a preemie. I could have been far more preemie.) Gran drove mom to hospital, following my uncle. (My father? The biological one was dead, the soon to be adoptive one was snowed in after playing a basketball game for the Navy. Not a good start, I'd say...)

Major tornadoes every year until we moved out of Indiana - F3 and F4 - but all close, not on us... ; same with blizzards and other major winter weather. Caught the edges of a nasty storm (hurricane like, but typhoon?? is that the name?) when we were in Calcutta. A small hurricane (Barry, 1983) hit our area of Florida when we lived there (Port Charlotte, as it happens; Dad was stationed at Mayport, but the marriage was falling apart, and Mom wanted to live near my grandmother....)

Three of the hottest summers on record in Arizona, also three "century storms" within 2 months of each other in the same area..... The two years I was in CA for school, they had the worst Santa Anas in memory, and while not a storm, I was there for the Northridge earthquake.

And blizzards. I can't escape blizzards. It snowed in Phoenix the first year we lived there!! We've gotten a major snow storm every winter since I've been in CO, though the weather is generally better here than anywhere else I've lived....

Weather and I are wary of each other....

Pcat

[Zynx]

48. Weird jet-stream drop/wind shear attack

Had 110 mph gusts clocked in SE Wisconsin. Quite the mess.

[barackmyworld]

52. quantity, not quality here

one summer, I was in
- an earthquake in japan
- a flood in china
- a tornado in wisconsin

talk about an unlucky vacation!

[grannylib]

53. Tornado came through my home town while the circus was set up at the

county fairgrounds. I was there with my oldest and my mom, pregnant with my second. Tornado ripped down part of the big top and downed electric lines set some stuff on fire. The poor animals were freaking out. It was just a really small one and not very long-lived but it was freaky nonetheless.

[UrbScotty]

55. Besides the Bush administration? We had a massive windstorm in 1998.

We had 120MPH wind gusts.

:wow: