Weird Weather Watch 2005

Not sure if any of you are aware of the flash floods in Yorkshire (England) yesterday. The floods are not out of the ordinary, considering the current heat wave followed by heavy rain, to hit Britain. What is odd though is the report of 2 inch hail stones that followed the torrential rain.

I’ve lived in Britain all my life and have never heard of 2 inch hailstones. Maybe some of you guys, who have more knowledge in this field, can correct me

Anyway, here are some comments from the BBC's "have your say" page...

The storm hit my village in the afternoon and the heavy rain very quickly turned into hail stones. They started as normal size but then grew into ones about an inch and a half big. I've never seen hail like it before in my life. The windows and roofs were being hit so hard I thought they would break. It was only after it cooled down that some of us in the village went outside and realised that all our cars had been dented by the huge hail and my neighbour's caravan had its windows shattered. I have kept some of the hail stones in my freezer for my boyfriend to see as he was 5 miles away and had told me it wasn't hailing at all!

About 3.00pm on Sunday afternoon the storm swept over the village and in less than an hour dumped about 5 cm of rain / hailstones onto the village. Once it passed the flooding in the garden subsided quickly but the damage to my car will take more to remedy. The hailstones of up to 40mm diameter have left the car roof and bonnet looking like they have been attacked by a hammer. I just hope the insurance company understands.

The last time I saw a storm like last night's was when I was the American Midwest during tornado season. The hailstones were huge and the thunder and lightning was constant. We lost our terrestrial TV signal too. As for the flooding, we knew something was up somewhere when we heard loads of sirens going as they headed towards Sutton Bank. There was a bit of flooding in Thirsk as well, but not as bad as in Helmsley. It's incredible to think how so much water fell in such a short time, especially as it had been so hot and sunny earlier in the day.

If you want to read all the quotes check out...

news.bbc.co.uk...

I live in Minneapolis Minnesota, and the past couple of weeks have had some strange "fast" weather. One Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, it was bright and sunny, then it started pouring rain, even though the sun was still shining (the rain cloud must not have been large enough to cover the whole sky), then the rain stopped for about five minutes. Then it started hailing marble sized stones, and then just as suddenly, it all stopped.

YEsterday we had a storm fly past us. I was at work, and you could see these pitch black and green clouds move through. There wire 60 mph Verticle winds which created a huge dust storm near the airport, and you could see a couple of funnel clouds way off to the north of the twin cities, not touching down, but still there, and close enough to the ground to be absolutely terrifying. It stormed horrible for about 30 minutes, and then it was gone.

The reason this is so strange, is usually when we get bad storms, they last for hours, even days at a time, but lately it's felt like a weather blitzkrieg. One second sunny, then rain, then sunny again.

After a the to-ing and fro-ing between sizzling temperatures, and extreme weather conditions and flooding through the past week or so here in the UK...
Today has brought prolonged thunderstorms causing flooding to the Glastonbury festival, along with a tornado in Coventry, and 2 houses left severely damaged by lightning strikes in the West Midlands.

That isn't the end of it though, more of the same is predicted, along with more tornadoes, and hail stones the size of golf balls! News Story

[edit on 24-6-2005 by Paul]

Originally posted by Paul
Today has brought prolonged thunderstorms causing flooding to the Glastonbury festival, along with a tornado in Coventry, and 2 houses left severely damaged by lightning strikes in the West Midlands.

BBC: Tornado sweeps through Coventry

On the page below (Violent storms end UK's heatwave) you can also click a link in the upper right corner to "Watch a tornado sweep across Coventry (video)"

BBC: Violent storms end UK's heatwave


BBC: Soaked Glastonbury gets under way

I feel sorry for those people in the tents at The Glastonbury Festival. I´ve had that experience myself. There was a violent rainfall (and serious flooding) during a music festival I attended some years back. It was just like the picture here. Actually maybe it was worse. Difficult to tell by looking at a picture...

Apparently there was a "hurricane" north of Moscow yesterday. Could this be a mistranslation and they really meant a tornado?

Interfax: Nine injured in hurricane north of Moscow

Jun 26 2005

Nine people were injured in a hurricane that swept across Moscow region on Sunday, region vice governor Alexei Panteleyev told reporters.

After receiving treatment all of them were allowed to go home as the injuries were not very bad, he said.

"The hurricane struck Taldom, Sergiyev Posad and Dmitrov districts of the area and the town of Dubna," Panteleyev said.

He reported an almost complete blackout in Dubna after falling trees tore power transmission lines.

Moscow is nowhere close to a warm tropical ocean so there is no way they could have experienced a hurricane. Obviously someone didn't bother to properly translate Russian to English. The injuries may have been due to high winds or a tornado. Considering so many average Americans seem to confuse the phrases tornado watch and tornado warning, I'm not surprised someone mistranslated in Russia.

...definately a translation error...

In case anyone cares.....Tropical Storm Bret formed and moved inland into Mexico. It formed pretty close to land so it wasn't able to gather alot of strength. It's now a tropical depression.
So what makes this so special?
www.weather.com...

Bret is now the second named storm of the 2005 Atlantic season (Arlene formed earlier in June). This is noteworthy, because since 1851 only 12 years have had two or more named storms in June. The last such occurence was in June 1986 (Tropical Storm Andrew and Hurricane Bonnie).

Here's the latest advisory
Tropical Depression Bret



[edit on 29-6-2005 by ThatsJustWeird]

I have heard of softball sized hail. One word comes to mind, "shelter".

Troy

150,000 has been evacuated from Dazhou in China because of flooding. Some are dead and some are missing too. 461mm of rain the last three days. They say it´s the worst rainfall in over 100 years. Here´s a picture from there...


Photo: Scanpix

Source:
Dagbladet: 150 000 evakuerte etter flom (in norwegian...)

Amazing Pic Helmutt!!

That's some severe flooding!

Lots of things going on. Now add in the early hurrican season, for some unusual weather. Is there any kind of pattern to all this wild weather, or is it just chaos?

Troy

Originally posted by Garden Spider
I live in Minneapolis Minnesota, and the past couple of weeks have had some strange "fast" weather. One Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, it was bright and sunny, then it started pouring rain, even though the sun was still shining (the rain cloud must not have been large enough to cover the whole sky), then the rain stopped for about five minutes. Then it started hailing marble sized stones, and then just as suddenly, it all stopped.

YEsterday we had a storm fly past us. I was at work, and you could see these pitch black and green clouds move through. There wire 60 mph Verticle winds which created a huge dust storm near the airport, and you could see a couple of funnel clouds way off to the north of the twin cities, not touching down, but still there, and close enough to the ground to be absolutely terrifying. It stormed horrible for about 30 minutes, and then it was gone.

The reason this is so strange, is usually when we get bad storms, they last for hours, even days at a time, but lately it's felt like a weather blitzkrieg. One second sunny, then rain, then sunny again.

I live in Minneapolis myself and I have to comment that this is not abnormal at all for this area. Fronts move through the midwest about once or twice a week because the jetstream goes right over us much of the time. Minnesota is known for rapidly changing weather. There's even an old saying, "If you don't like the weather in Minnesota, wait five minutes and it'll change!"

Not trying to "rain" on your observations Spider, just adding my perspective. Those storms were amazing though!

Peace,

~Jammer

Didn't both Dennis and Emily have the label "biggest" or "strongest" for this time of the year?

Troy

[edit on 17-7-2005 by cybertroy]

The heat wave in the U.S. is reaching epic proportions, some places might see 35 straight days of temperatures surpassing 100 degrees.

Records are being broken across several states in the southwest.

I also just read that Mexico may have evacuated Cozumel and much of the Yucatan penninsula in preparation for the hurricane. They also rounded up tourists along the coast and are keeping them in secure locations (gymnasiums, ballrooms and such) until the storm passes.

Source

Yeah, temperatures around 120, that sounds deadly.

The thing I keep hearing over and over, "record this", "record that".

Troy

It was extremely dry here for over 5 weeks, I believe. Not a drop of rain if I recall correctly. This is also the 7th day straight of extreme heat alerts in Toronto. he hottest place in Canada last week was Moosonee, Ontario, at the edge of the Artic.

Originally posted by parrhesia
This is also the 7th day straight of extreme heat alerts in Toronto.

Your weather looks similiar to mine as far as the temperature goes and I probably live over 1000 miles to the south. Of course everything is normal for us here. No one issues weather alerts for temperatures that reach the 90's here though. It's just another hot and humid day. I would enjoy the heat while it lasts. I expect cooler temperatures to start arriving before August is over. Oh I forgot, a lot of people that far north do not have air conditioning. That's really rough if you don't. Is that why the extreme heat alerts are issued?

Consider my parade rained on.

I've actually lived in Minnesota my whole life, minus the first year and half after I was born where I lived in Phoenix Arizona, and from 1999-2001 when I lived in Colombia. Other than that, I'm a Minnesota boy through and through, and I've seen the fronts come and go quickly, but never as quickly as they have lately. I saw sunshine, hail, pouring rain, and lightining, and then sunshine again within the span of a half hour. I know it's probably nothing, but it did strike me as extremely odd that it would happen that amazingly quickly.

But whatever, it's small and meaningless compared to what else is going on in the world.

Originally posted by orionthehunter
Oh I forgot, a lot of people that far north do not have air conditioning. That's really rough if you don't. Is that why the extreme heat alerts are issued?

Nope, most people have A/C.
The extreme heat alerts are mostly issues for older folks and those who have illnesses that are affected by extremely hot and humid weather. It's also n ot just heat and humidity, but also taken into consideration is smog and other factors. It's saying stay inside, or go to a "cooling centre" for A/C and free water.

Normally coupled with these heat alerts is warning from the power companies about consumption and warnings of rotating blackouts due to overconsumption of power (attributed to excess use of A/C according to them).

oh teh joy

well duh its GLOBAL WARMING