Wild Weather - What's your area like? A survey

Hello everyone. With all the talk about increasingly dangerous, threatening, or just plain strange weather happening, or about to be happening, I thought I'd ask all of you how the weather is in your respective locations where you live around the world. Supposedly, the whole globe is experiencing abnormal patterns, and will get worse. The Pentagon has people saying this, various scientists, I've seen articles, and many of you are mentioning this. So I thought I'd try and see just how realistic and/or bad it is with your help.

Well, I live in Iowa, and I can say that the weather is unusual so far this spring, but I'd say to only a mild extent. We always have a good amount of rain, but this year, we're getting much much more. That in itself isn't very noteworthy though. However, what is probably the strange thing is that occasionally, and yesterday especially, it was windy beyond anything I can remember for an Iowa spring. Consistent gusts of 25 to 30 mph. And it lasted the whole day. I've experienced this weather near large bodies of water like the Great Lakes, and other areas with lakes, but this is Iowa. No large bodies of water here. So that is strange. There are other minor things, but I suppose those can happen any year. Anyway, so I've started it off, could you all help me out and fill me in on your areas? Normal, strange, or what?

well for me, this should be the rainy season, however it's been pretty darn dry in south florida. Hurricane season started only yesterday, too bad everyone has already gotten hit by Hurricane Amnesia. Six months to go, so there is much time to see just how wild the weather will get here. so far, it been hot and sunny, perfect florida weather imo

Well, here in Southeast Michigan , we've had more rain than usual and broke the 1943 record for Detroit Metro Airport (old record 8.05 inches, new record, 8.43 inches). Only 1895, I think, had more rain. So, I think heavy rains are cyclical. My particular are had over 7.5 inches of rain in May.
The bad news for this heavy rain was that 60 years ago, most of the homes were farmland, and the heavy rains flooded virgin subdivisions.

Storm-wise, it is almost a relief. We had had very few, if any severe weather in recent springs, which I thought odd.

BTW, good thread idea. I hope it generates lots of responses/data!

[Edited on 2-6-2004 by DontTreadOnMe]

I've lived in Southern Louisiana for about five years now, and there's three seasons here: rainy, stinkin' hot and cold-with-no-leaves. So far, no real change from the norm (according to the hubby, who's lived here most of his life), though the banana spiders came out early in July. Usually they start becoming a nuisance near the end of August and in September. There was also a serious deluge of caterpillars in March/April of this year. Other than that, things haven't been too bizarre, and I'm even getting used to the intense lightning storms.

Here in Georgia has been dry but for the past 2 days rain is catching up with us, but is suppouse to be rainy at this time and nasty humid

Things pretty usual around here, thought there have been an abundance of thunder storms lately, and when it rains it really really rains. A few weeks ago it dumped about a foot of water in a few hours, total carnage on the roads and tube stations were evacuated & closed.

Other than that nothing too odd to report though.

B

"Others [terrorists] are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves... So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations...It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our [counterterrorism] efforts." Secretary of Defense William Cohen at an April 1997 counterterrorism conference sponsored by former Senator Sam Nunn.

Quoted from DoD News Briefing, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Q&A at the Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy, University of Georgia, Athens, Apr. 28, 1997.


www.cheniere.org...


I tend to believe a reputable former Sec of Defense like William Cohen. I dont know why he would admit to this. Now as far as a Russian technology reserved for only Russia, I believe we posess it as well.

Its quite pleasant here in the middle of the UK right now, about 70F.

If we're logging abnormal weather though, last august we had one freakishly hot week, temps of 40C, it was the hottest period ever recorded in the UK.
A couple of years back too, in June, we had a storm of the like I've never seen. It seemed to come out of nowhere. I was out jogging, and saw a tornado (of all things here in the UK!!) there were people lining up in the street watching it, my brother got a photo of it forming. it wasn't a huge tornado, but an anomoly for the Uk nontheless. Then came a really heavy downpour, the bottom of my road flooded two feet deep within half an hour, my road has never flooded before. It was weird to say the least!

The effects of global warming perhaps?

As far as the weather here in Tx, It seems we were having late August weather in late May: Heat index: 104....Austin,Tx.

I had a flat tire the other day and the heat index was around 104. I wasnt out of my car more than 25 minutes and have a nice sun burn.

Amazing...I never burned like this before. It usually took 2 hrs to burn 8 years ago now 25 minutes?

New Jersey is becoming a rainforest. All we need now are monkeys.

DTOM beat it to me.

it's also been pretty windy around detroit lately though... or maybe that's just me thinking it. but i donno, it barely rained in april and i go by the saying "april flowers bring may showers."

Alright, glad I'm getting good feedback. I remember the extreme heat in the UK and I think it hit France too? Well, I guess there have been many anomalies lately, but I wonder if it's different than other times? I think it's safe to say there are always anomalies, but just how many are normal and how frequent and severe? Hopefully we can get some really old fogies in here who can compare these times to other decades and even early 20th century.

Upstate Ny has had sever lightning/thunder storms and RAIN RAIN RAIN.

We have had some strong winds but that is not all that unusual as we are by lake ontario.

All in all I would say that this sping has been stormy but not too unusual.

My opinion of the UK's weather, based on comparisons between now and when I was a child in the 1970s is that we don't really have seasons any more.

Winters are mild and wet and summers are slightly milder and also generally wet.

There are the odd weeks with a very cold snap during the winter or a very hot spell in the summer, but apart from this the weather doesn't really change that much from season to season.

To give an example, I now have to mow my lawn right into December whereas when I was a child my father was able to stop mowing the lawn in October because the grass had stopped growing.

The UK used to get quite severe winter weather - in 1963 there was six feet of snow on the ground across most of the country from January to March and most winters used to see a few weeks of snow up until the mid to late 70s. That seems inconceivable now when we usually have just a light dusting of snow on one or two days each year.

Originally posted by ab2tw
Upstate Ny has had sever lightning/thunder storms and RAIN RAIN RAIN.
We have had some strong winds but that is not all that unusual as we are by lake ontario.
All in all I would say that this sping has been stormy but not too unusual.

Upstate NY here too, although not that close to ontario. Tons of rain, that flooded a small section of my town, ( were getting kinda used to that). but this time about 5 years ago a tornado touched down, kinda close to where i now live. and my husband was outside the other day watching the storm, and saw a funnel cloud trying to form. got a decent pic of it too i think, but it still makes me wonder if i should have bought this house

Rain, rain go away....I just had a conversation at a party this weekend about how very weird the weather has been here in Chicago this year. We usually joke that in Chicago there is no spring - typically we go straight from blizzard to blazing heat. However, this year it seems spring will never end. We've had so much rain I'm building an ark. And it isn't just showers - we're talking serious thunderstorms with high wind, hail, tornados, lightning, the works. It is now June and we are still wearing long sleves and it is still cloudy - calling for more rain today. Very unusual for this area.

Here in chicago, rain, rain and rain. Atleast the temp is up. It didnt hit 80 till second week of june last year.

Only a few hours from Detroit, so same as the others, but a couple of years ago we had a thunder/lightning storm. Nothing weird about that except, it was January and snowing up a blizzard. I wouldn't have believed it if I had been told this, but I saw it.

Alabama is hot and humid as always. This year has been particularly uneventful. We did get some light snow fall during the winter, but of course it didn't stick. Its the beginning of tornado season here, so many areas are gearing up for extreme weather.

In in Toronto, Ontario and the weather here, of late, has been quite rainy. It's always very windy where I'm located, due in part to the massive amounts of high-rise buildings that act as wind tunnels. There was some flooding around the Southern Part of the Province last weekend due to massive rains for several days constantly. We haven't got into the real heat just yet, not too much humidity, it's actually a tad cool.