Weather

I'm getting off the forum and shutting down my computer - there are 100km winds predicted to arrive in a few hours.

I feel for the people in north Queensland - there's a category 4 cyclone due within 24 hours.

Stay safe Banana Benders

Yikes! Batten down the hatches and stay safe!


IrishLass

It was blustery enough here to blow one of our screens off and our neighbor's door mat down the walkway. We also lost a few small branches and palm fronds down the street. But nothing nearly as exciting as what you are experiencing! I hope you (and all nearby tree branches) are safe!

Lucky where I am - a lot of dangerous trees were cleaned up in a program that went for a few weeks last year, so nothing too bad.

The cyclone up north has been downgraded to a 2, but it's still going (very slow moving, which has made it more destructive).

We'll know tomorrow morning when the emergency services can finally (safely) get in to start their work - fingers crossed.

Driving from New Mexico to Texas a week or so ago, the wind and sand storms were the worst I'd ever driven in on I-10, but probably not the worst they've ever been. Luckily when my rear tire blew the wind wasn't too horribly bad in that part of Texas. (The tires are a whole other story, I won't go into.)

Then driving home from Missouri to Illinois a few days ago, the wind and rain was pretty heavy. Not anywhere near as bad as I've seen other times in the past in California, Wyoming, Florida, well any number of places, really. But the worst part of this whole trip was going from comfortably warm temperatures wearing zorries, shorts and sleeveless tops everyday for a month to long pants, long sleeved shirts, socks and a jacket again once I was back in cold of the MidWest. Doesn't Illinois know it's Spring?

SaltedFig.....
Report in.
Are you still there or did you get the cyclone?

earlene said:

Driving from New Mexico to Texas a week or so ago, the wind and sand storms were the worst I'd ever driven in on I-10, but probably not the worst they've ever been. Luckily when my rear tire blew the wind wasn't too horribly bad in that part of Texas. (The tires are a whole other story, I won't go into.)

Then driving home from Missouri to Illinois a few days ago, the wind and rain was pretty heavy. Not anywhere near as bad as I've seen other times in the past in California, Wyoming, Florida, well any number of places, really. But the worst part of this whole trip was going from comfortably warm temperatures wearing zorries, shorts and sleeveless tops everyday for a month to long pants, long sleeved shirts, socks and a jacket again once I was back in cold of the MidWest. Doesn't Illinois know it's Spring?

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earlene, that sounds terrifying! I'm glad you are ok.

Steve, I'm fine, but some people are doing it really hard (a whole town got flooded in New South Wales, and the floods are still rising in Queensland). My heart goes out to those who have lost family.

We had severe thunderstorms and a confirmed tornado through my area today. I was at work, and trying to stay away from the glass doors.

Praying for folks in Australia! We have hurricanes, so I am overly familiar with the effects.

Oh Boy stay safe.

We just got pounded in north Texas.

We got a new roof 6 months ago, and now we have to replace it again... there goes all our savings

The hail the other night was horrible. I thought the roof was going to cave in!

We had tornadoes near here a couple of weeks ago. We have been getting rain for the last week. The old saying for our midwest is "April Showers Bring May Flowers." I hope that is true this year.

Is the weather normally that extreme where you all come from?

SaltedFig said:

Is the weather normally that extreme where you all come from?

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Depends on where you are talking about. It has been getting progressively more extreme in different parts of the country.

I'm in Los Angeles, while we haven't gotten extreme weather (in the sense of hurricanes and tornadoes), we are seeing the first rain season after several years of heat and drought.

The weather in Illinois has become less extreme since we moved here 12 years ago. Originally I am from California (born & raised), but CA has lots of different climates. Illinois is fairly flat for the majority of the state and being so close to the middle of the country without any real mountain ranges, it tends to be fairly constant in terms of weather patterns. Winds and thermal patterns play a huge part of changing weather patterns here, but there aren't any mountains to stop either of them.

The day my husband & I left for Obama's inauguration in 2009, the temperature at our airport (19 miles away from our home) was -29° F or -33.8° C. We haven't had a winter that cold since. And we barely get any snow lately, either. It's been years since there was so much snow that I can't open my back door here. And only once this past winter did the snow plows have to move snow to the middle of the street. That hasn't happened much in several years either. My husband grew up here and tells me that the winter snows here used to be a lot more like they were when we moved here 12 years ago. Also I haven't seen an ice storm here in at least 7 or 8 years. Those were gorgeous to behold.

But aside from hurricanes (I have been close, but not in one), mudslides (a neighbor of mine died when her house slid down the mountain on the other side of the creek from my house in the 90's), tornadoes (thankfully I have never been close to one), earthquakes (I've been in a few starting at a very young age), floods (I've been in a few floods and it can be scary, but exhilarating if they're not too godawful), heavy rains, droughts, hailstorms (I've only had to deal with light hailstorms, myself), snowstorms, the occasional avalanche (thankfully I've never been caught in one), and so forth, California isn't half bad. I love it.

My uncle and aunt used to live in Dubai and those sandstorms sounded horrendous to me. They told me how the sand would permeate their house and there was absolutely no way to keep sand out of your home when sandstorms hit. Plus the heat sounded awful to me as well, although I have been in Bullfrog City (heat at 117° that day) and Death Valley; I really don't like extreme heat.

Hi SaltedFig, here is a thread that I loved reading through and I hope you'll add a post

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=62353

I hope this weather thread continues too, I love hearing about everyone's experiences, and hope everyone is safe and sound!