[Jay-qu]

i love extremes in weather - big lightning storms, wind so strong you can lean on it - oh and they usally produce big waves in the ocean for surfing

[Lilac]

I love blustery days - that meant "winter" where I grew up (Sacramento, California). I love the wind tossing a few drops of rain around and turning umbrellas inside out. I've got no use for umbrellas, they are more of a nuisance than a few old raindrops on my head.

Down here in the deep south (southern Georgia, btw), it's no use watching the Weather Channel for the forecast in the summer; every day is exactly the same: highs in the low 90's, lows in the 70's, 30-60% chance of afternoon thunderstorms. Every. Single. Day. from June through September.

You want to know if it will rain? Look at the sky!! I've gotten pretty darn good at identifying which clouds actually have rain in them - I think I'm at about 95% accuracy of predicting wet or dry hair. The only time I've been wrong lately was when I tried to outrace a storm to the local supermarket. It beat me there, and I had to sit in the parking lot for 10 minutes - it was a real gully-washer. (A bit more wet than I'm prepared to deal with - I like to be able to SEE the store door I'm racing for through the rain.)

[Turtle]

___Lilac...? The blustery winds have taken her away. Today in the lap of volcanos we have our hottest day of the season at 37 deg C. I have chosen to cool my heels with a St. Paulina Girl yellow German bier; much too hot for a dark Arrogant Bastard.

[Cedars]

Thunderstorms are my favorite. The big ones. 50,000 to 60,000 feet high to the top of the anvil. The lines that form and come thru during daylight hours so I can see the clouds form and change. The foreboding shelf cloud ahead of the rain that just screams DANGER, the green skies, which may or may not signal that hail cometh soon. I don’t know that I have a favorite position to storm watch, in that a storm that passes barely north of me (or I get the glancing south edge of the storm) allows for the greatest potential to see rotation (and possibly a tornado). Or the ones than pass right over, which allow me to stand out in the winds that pass thru right before the rain hits. The sky getting dark as night. The seeming calm right before the winds start. When you can hear the roar of the winds so loud aloft, yet around you the air is surprisingly calm. The huge power of it all. The crackle of a bolt of lightning passing so close by. Then the BOOM and shake of the house after it hits the ground. And of course how lightning looks. And then to go outside afterwards, and find the air temperature has fallen 20 degrees in this time. Ah the cold front has moved in...

Has anyone here noticed the big water birds moving off the lakes right before a big one hits. By moving off the lakes I mean, they do not roost in trees along the lakes, rather they seem to move to trees away from water. I have noticed this a few times. The egrets moving by groups, their white wings flashing so brilliantly against the blue gray clouds. The eagles and herons seem to do this too.

I sometimes keep the weather radar animations as a record of a particularly strong storm.

[Cedars]

Blizzards are cool too. Much rarer than the big thunderstorm, at least for my area. Not fun to be driving around in but the prep routine for those of us who have such events are kinda fun. The rush to stock up on supplies (food mostly). Everyone chatting excitedly in the stores as they wonder how bad it will get. Watching the birds come in to get that last big meal before it hits. Daytime storms are the best as you watch the snow pile up. It gets so quiet. All you hear is the rustling of these dead leaves in the wind, and sometimes, you hear the snow hitting the dead leaves. Lots of snow piling up. Then the big winds hit. Where the snow swirls around into drifts. Snow is a much better insight into how winds swirl. Rain is too heavy to show the real wind movement on the smaller scale like how trees and buildings affect its flow.

And blizzards are at a slower pace than the thunderstorms. It seems its seldom that a blizzard starts and ends entirely in the daylight hours. You go to bed at night and wake up and its over. And then you go outside and wander familiar paths in your yard to see how deep the drifts got. And you marvel at how low the branches hang on the pine trees without breaking. Watching squirrels break paths thru the deep snow. Or you mutter unhappily as you see the front of your car is below the top of the drift that formed in front of it. And all is so quiet for a bit. Until others wake and begin to fire up their plow trucks or snow blowers. The longest we were snowed in due to a blizzard was 5 days. That was back in the early 70s.

[Turtle]

___What kind of snows did you have this past Winter? What kind of Spring & Summer have you there?
___In my area (Pacific Northwest US) the weather is out of wack this year. A mild Winter has produced a bumper crop of mice which continue eating crops in the field & a wet Spring kept the Honey Bees from pollinating the orchards & we have a dismal harvest of fruit as well. (I haven't heard how the Hazel Nuts(we call them Filberts here) have faired?)
___The last week or so we have first one hot, then cloudy, then hot, then... The weather forcasters have to wish for new software I think.

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by Turtle

___What kind of snows did you have this past Winter? What kind of Spring & Summer have you there?
___In my area (Pacific Northwest US) the weather is out of wack this year. A mild Winter has produced a bumper crop of mice which continue eating crops in the field & a wet Spring kept the Honey Bees from pollinating the orchards & we have a dismal harvest of fruit as well. (I haven't heard how the Hazel Nuts(we call them Filberts here) have faired?)
___The last week or so we have first one hot, then cloudy, then hot, then... The weather forcasters have to wish for new software I think.

We had snow here for the first time in years, on Christmas Eve. I live outside of Houston, TX. A friend sent me a sattelite photo showing the Lower Gulf Coast of Texas covered in snow. It was great, my 15 and 13 year olds had never been in snow.

[Skippy]

Thought you might find the attached lightning photos interesting. They were taken at Edwards Air Force Base after the recent Space Shuttle Dicovery landing. A friend of a friend works at NASA and these were sent to him. Good quality photos! Enjoy

Skippy

[infamous]

Originally Posted by Skippy

Thought you might find the attached lightning photos interesting. They were taken at Edwards Air Force Base after the recent Space Shuttle Dicovery landing. A friend of a friend works at NASA and the se were sent to him. Good quality photos! Enjoy

Skippy

Excellent photos Skippy.

[Eclogite]

Originally Posted by Turtle

___What kind of snows did you have this past Winter?

Being inherently lazy one of the factors of deciding me upon buying my present home was the expectation that I would be snowed in for a day or two once or twice a year. North East of Scotland, 100m altitude, more than ten miles from the coast, off the main highway, 3/4 mile up a single track road (uphill). It seemed a foregone conclusion.
Twenty years later and I haven't been snowed in once. I was, however, snowed out once. Driving to collect my wife from a nearby town at 10.00pm in the evening I made it down the hill OK. Driving back up proved impossible. That was around the time I wished I had had the good sense to change from slippers to boots before setting out. 3/4 mile through a blizzard in slippers is not something I would now recommend.