Signing off for a bt....

[crfriend]

... there's a tornado heading this way.

[Kilted_John]

Hopefully it's just false echos on the radar map. That said, WA state got a tornado a few days ago. An EF0. Big whoop.

-J

[crfriend]

Back online...

It's pretty ugly from a state perspective, Springfield, MA got a fairly heavy hit with at least one (very pretty historical) downtown building sustaining severe damage. Roofs were torn off and at least one tractor-trailer was overturned -- on a bridge, just for maximal impact. The track of two "on-the-ground" tornadoes currently known tracked south of where we live, an there's another one brewing to the north as I write this.

The sky to the west was a really ugly green for a while from our little hamlet, and pendulous "hangings" from clouds were common, but we got by unscathed.

I did, however, power down all my computers -- and that is a very rare thing. I'll see if my machine at work captured a decent RADAR image from the event at it slid by us to the south; I'll post it if it did.

So, both "crfriend" and "Sapphire" are fine, and the weather didn't beat us up too badly.

Cheers all!

[Uncle Al]

..."Snip"...
So, both "crfriend" and "Sapphire" are fine, and the weather didn't
beat us up too badly.

Cheers all!

THAT'S VERY GOOD NEWS

I know all too well what you're going through

Uncle Al

[Jack Williams]

I'm sure glad the things missed you, had me worried there for a bit!

[crfriend]

Well we did get a bit of a blow last night, and got one heck of a thunderstorm.

To set the stage, here's sunset at about 20:08 local time. The blue radial points to the setting sun:

sunset-20110501.png

Worcester is located roughly in the middle of the state and we live about the height of the "W" north of Worcester's crosshair.

There was at least one tornado on the ground starting near West Springfield (to the southwest of Worcester) moving eastwards at about 40 MPH at about 16:15.

Here's what it looked like a half-hour later:

20110601-2036.png

We're right under the ugly red blob indicating very intense precipitation -- which I can soundly state that we were receiving in bucketfuls. I'd managed to leave the dining-/computer- room window and the sill was completely full of water and it was sloshing in.

Fortunately, the worst of it missed us; however, much of western Massachusetts got plastered, four people lost their lives, property damage was extensive, and lots of folks are still without power.

[Since1982]

Speaking of unfriendly weather systems, to our South and West in the Caribbean Sea is a new hurricane spinning around and thinking about which direction to come. June 1 is the first day of hurricane season and already we have one named one and a nearly named Tropical storm within a couple of hundred miles of each other. The hurricane, at this time is moving slowly to the NE or....IN MY DIRECTION! Looks like another batten down the hatches, strap down the mobile home and take off for Miami and the Miccosukie Resort and Casino for a few days until they open the road back up IF it continues to come this way.

[kingfish]

Sorry for the delay, but I figured I'd add a picture or two that kind of sums up the damage Carl almost got.
First is is from the US geological survey and NASA. This is the tornado track, as seen from space.
It is at:
http://eros.usgs.gov/ecms/images/prodim ... nado_l.jpg
The little black dot on the track in the middle of the image is the pond at the Village Green Campground in Brimfield.

And here is a closeup of that pond that I took on the ninth.

[DALederle]

In the last two weeks in Illinois we have gone through several bad storms, a few tornados and many power outages.
In fact we went from being the driest July on record to being the wettest July on record in very short order. A record of nearly 7" of rain fell at O'Hare Airport in one single downpour.
Homes flooded are so common I don't know why they show it on TV anymore. I guess because it's the only thing they can show without some taking offense at a story.
It's a safe topic to cover.
Keep your eye on the weather and stay safe.

Dennis A. Lederle

Coming up on another heat wave soon.
Live Long and Perspire!