Most bizarre/strange weather event you've ever seen

[Mikel Shively]

For me it was March of 1998 when a Snowstorm came through and left us with 24 inches of HEAVY WET SNOW.... Some Barns were collapsing under the weight of the snow... I had parked my car in my dads machine shed that night, unaware of what was about to happen. The next morning, My car was flat!

 

[Susan Strom]

-Perfectly formed Kelvin Helmholtz wave cloud - Desolation Wilderness, Sierra Nevada.

-Base of Yosemite Falls, 2am. Heavy spring runoff during the month of May + full Moon at a certain angle = full white lunar rainbow, colored only at the ends. Very weird looking. My father and I hiked in the dark at that hour...just for the moonbow. I will never forget it.

-Big, orange ball of setting sun in the Central Deserts of Arizona, with CGs coming from a high-based dry thunderstorm and "slicing" the sun in half.

-Wierd: Sunny afternoons on the north Pacific coast, when the skies are blue and clear overhead, but oddly, the waves are churning and crashing up on the headlands. What could it mean? Prepare for the storm at sea.

-Fog is very rare in the Sonoran Desert. Photographers will rush out the door for a rare fog, or winter snowfall on the saguaro cactus. It does look strange.

-Utility poles popping and arcing over me in Kansas during a lightning storm I was chasing near Sublette...that was a strange experience.

-I found quite an odd rainbow in the California desert near Palm Springs. It was low arched to the ground, like someone pushed the arch down until just the top was showing above the horizon.

-Last year, there was a *massive* dust-devil, hundreds of feet tall, coming out of the airport in Phoenix, Arizona. It stayed together for 15-20 minutes. Filled with red dust and debris, it looked like a giant red straw sticking out of the Salt River. I laughed in amazement.

-Contrails from pre-dawn missile launches at White Sands New Mexico show up as irridescent in the Phoenix, Arizona morning sky at daybreak. Hundreds of calls about aliens & plane crashes usually pelt the newsrooms. I have to show you what this looks like, it is weird. Here's a nice shot by Frank Zullo, photographer. He captured it exactly.
http://www.thepass.net/Zullo/Missile.htm

-I happened to be close to a transformer once when it blew up in a green exposion, in Arizona while chasing Monsoon.

-Weird story of last summer: There is a church parking lot that I like to shoot from in Scottsdale. It has a nice view. The church is called St. Anthony's. Once night last summer, at 1am I was looking to set up there in the parking lot but missed the driveway because the power had blown so I went down to the next block to shoot lightning from a patch of dark desert. I remember looking at my car clock...it said exactly 1am and I thought it might be getting late. The lightning was fierce, CGs were pelting all around. The next morning in the paper...there was a story about St. Anthony's church. At exactly 1am, a CG had hit the steeple, traveled down the tower and burned a hole in a hymnal that was lying on the altar. Had I been set up in the parking lot, I would have either jumped out of my skin (or had a nice shot). I thought that was so funny...and God said "I don't like that song...ZOT!" Well, I'm still here, lucky for me. And, many moons ago I did pull off a decent shot from St. Anthony's church anyway http://www.lightninglady.com/photos/LLWired.jpg

 

[Thomas Loades]

It's not that weird, but I kind of looked up along a lightning bolt once. It was in the summer a few years ago, and I was just walking out of a shopping center when I heard a drawn-out rumble of thunder. Not having seen the sky for about the last hour, I looked up to see dark clouds filling the field of view (fairly limited, though, as many buildings were constricting it).

Just then, as I was looking up — pretty much 90°, straight up — a CG connected with a cell phone antenna on the three-story building directly opposite from me. What I saw looked like a really luminous centipede, bent in a C-shape — it was pretty contorted, like a multi-segmented insect, but retained a C-shape . . . so I suppose, had I been looking at a distance, I wouldn't have seen any branches coming off the bolt. It pulsed brightly, twice (return strokes, I imagine), and just before it vanished there was a BANG! of thunder — not drawn out at all, just really, really loud, and it echoed between the buildings. I've never been that close to a lightning bolt (and been aware of it) before or since.

 

[Eric Flescher]

green sky near Ann Arbor, MI

IN the 1978-1981, a tornadic front was moving in from the West toward Ann Arbor. I could see it coming from the window in my house and it got darker. BUt then as it got closer, it got green and then lime green- really lime green. Never had seen that color in the sky. Had always heard about it.
Then I got to see Green again.
On the 21st I was up near Platte City, MO
I shot up I435 from Overland Park around 4 and sped North. Tornado warnings were out West of the KS line and moving NE. I stopped off at the Weston exit to look at some Mammatus just West of I435. Dangerous cells were moving into Platt City so I headed there and got off at the exit. I could see that the Condos on the West side of the highway were repainted. I had seen some storm action between these condos in 2002 when I saw the brief tornado touchdown that same day as the great Wyandotte tornado a couple of years ago.
I heard then there were also storms headed to Wyandotte county but I could see the storm coming towards Platt City so I camped out next to a truck stop and Wendy's. On my small TV monitor it was said that there was possible rotation in the clouds near Weston.
Soon the sky in Plattsburg turned a little green and then more Olive green. Cool. I had not seen this intense green since the lime green I saw in Ann Arbor , MI in the late 1979-1981 (not sure which year but it was awesome). This color was not as limey. I took videos and will place pics of the green color on my website sometime.
Pea size hail bounced all around for 10 minutes while the green sky continued. Then it just rained which the stormed headed into Missouri. A funnel cloud was observed by some spotters on KMBC TV.
I got back after celebrating and eating at the Malay Cafe south of the airport.
I will look at the video later and have more any more specific stuff.
I wonder what others saw in KS or MO.
Not bad for a first chase of 2005.
Only one other chaser has had photos of green sky images so if you have some. I would like to compare them with yours.

Dr.Eric Flescher ([email protected]),Olathe, KS -Storm Satori-http://members.aol.com/kcstormguy/stormsatori/stormsatori.htm

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Thomas' lightning post reminded me of probably the most intense thing I've seen.

It was the good ole lightning bolt back on August 22 2002. While filming a -very- intense cloud to ground lightning show out my back door that nite, I captured lightning hitting a tree 15 yards from me.

[Broken External Image]:http://www.geocities.com/pstormwx/bolt3.JPG


Was hanging out in the doorway, and all of a sudden was blinded by a bright white flash, bright enough that I did not see the bolt with my naked eye, thought I was looking right at it. I felt the shockwave from the bolt, a hot blast of air...and was knocked to the ground...where I spent a good 15-30 seconds dead silent in shock at what had happened. After this happened, in less than 10 seconds, 4 more bolts struck very close. Close enough that all 4 had less than one second between the flash and bang. This was the most intense lightning barrage I've ever witnessed, or seen on any video. Not to mention that extremely close bolt that lead the whole thing off.

 

[Pedro C. Fernández]

I'm 27 years old and I have gone through interesting moments of severe weather along Iberia (Spain): hailstones like eggs (around 5 - 6 centimeters) in central (1991 in Arcos de Jalón, Soria) and northeastern Iberia (1997 in Zaragoza), bow echos with Cb arcus at the surface (2003 in Arcos, 2002 in Zaragoza), Mesoescale Convective Complexes, gale-force winds in Salobreña (Granada), in the southern Spain (an active low crossed through Strait of Gibraltar into Mediterranean Sea, provoking gale-force wind with gusts up to 140 km/h and waves in the sea up to 6 meters of height, damaging the beaches), derechos and winds gusting up to 140 km/h ...

But, nevertheless, I have never seen a tornadic supercell or tornado generated inside of a multicellular storm system; neither funnel-clouds :cry: I have seen wall-clouds and dreadful bases and Cumulonimbus. Perhaps one day I could see a real tornado and/or supercell storms!

 

[Thomas Loades]

I've just remembered something weirder, and I still don't know exactly what it was.

On January 30, 2004, I was at school, eagerly anticipating storms that afternoon because it was so humid, there was wind shear, and by now (lunch time — about 1245–1300) cumulus clouds were starting to take off.

I could see one that looked pretty vigorous and none too far away, but the base was blocked by one of the school buildings. I took my attention away from the sky for about 10 minutes, then noticed scud overhead; the fragments stood out because they were so oddly dark against the sharp blue sky and crisp white towers springing up. They formed a trail which led back to the smaller tower nearby.

And now for the weird part. The base of that tower was now visible, and it was spinning. All the scud coming in was quite visibly corkscrewing up into the base of this little tower, none too high yet, and yet that base resembled a wall cloud — it was a shallow, inverted cone that had these bits of scud swirling up into it. By now, I was anticipating a funnel cloud to form, though one never did.

Ultimately, the tower never got much higher, but the whole thing began spinning — it even had a little striation or two — but it never formed an anvil, never had obvious precip, no thunder or lightning, and it soon died off . . . but like an LP supercell would, with the column becoming narrower while still spinning, and eventually breaking in half.

About two hours after that, this thunderstorm formed, which I got a fantastic view of from the front porch of my house. I took some pictures which I still haven't developed. It had a hook echo, but while it was out at sea.

 

[SteveCarter]

Mothers Day in NW Illinois. The year was 1988. or 1987. It was an unusually muggy May day, and we noticed a lot of cumulus clouds building to the southwest. Around 1PM, tornado warnings started appearing in nearly every county in Iowa, from a line stretching from Waterloo to the Missou/Iowa border. We watched for the next three hours as these storms blasted eastward. Very unusual to have a squall line with so many tubes in it, but they were definately there. Around 4PM, a tornado warning was issued for Whiteside county in illinois, and we took cover. Before we ran for the cellar, we stood outside and watched a large red barn disappear in the distance, and knew a twister was less than two miles away. The air was filled with a sweet earthy smell, and it was absolutely calm beyond belief. It felt as though your very breath made noise. Lightning raced across the sky in every direction, but always started from the same point - the funnel. In the cellar for about 10 minutes, curiousity finally got the best of me, so i went back upstairs, and then down the hallway, and eventually to the front door. It never even rained. But......the sky was a blood red color, still no wind, and fine red dust was falling to the ground like the lightest of snowflakes. Off to the north, the sky was a forest green color, and with the red dust covering everything, it was a spectacular sight. A rainbow was pushed out of the green sky towards the west, and there stood that old red barn in the distance! Apparantly, the tornado was between our house and the red barn, and the dust made it appear as though it was destroyed. It was, to this day, one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. The green sky, the red dust covering everything, and still filtering down, and the rainbow.

 

[SteveCarter]

When you start thinking about it, there are MANY weird weather things I've seen.
***In the Spring of '94, living in Madison County GA, we were under a tornado watch for 27 straight hours! Closest tube was 6 miles from my house, but did little damage.
***Thundersnow from the "Storm of the Century". March of '93. I even have it on video. We were making a snowman with the kids, when a bolt of lightning illuminated the yard, and C-R-A-C-K. Really unusual to get snow in Georgia, let alone THUNDERsnow. We got 4 inches of snow in 2 hours, and the winds never dropped below 35 mph.
***Waterspount/tornado...in Myrtle Beach, SC. everything about this was unusual. It was 7AM, and we were having coffee, overlooking the beach. We saw a huge cloud, looking more like a tidal wave than anything, coming right us, from East to West. All we could see was rain. Then the balcony doors began to shake, and people were screaming at others to get off the beach, and go inside. The wind was intense! Not until we read the paper, did we know exactly what happened. they said a tornado lifted the roof off the hotel two hotels down from us! We never saw the funnel, as it was HP.
***Christmas Eve - 1986? the temperature at 5 in the afternoon was -17, and the windchill was -65. We lived in an old farmhouse in NW Illinois, and our lights flickered on and off for 18 hours. We were the only house on the road, and our driveway was 1/4 mile long. We were definately snowed in, as the intense winds caused snowdrifts over 15 feet high. With two very small children, it was nerve-racking, knowing that the lights, (and subsequently the heat) could go out at any time. The cars were snowbound, and the roads closed. It was so cold, there was ice over the stove in the kitchen, even with the heat never shutting off. The day after Christmas, our pastor brough us supplies on a snowmobile. Toilet paper, cigarettes, and pampers, and four gallons of water, as the water lines were completely frozen. I'm REALLY glad those days are gone! There's a few more stories, but don't want to hog the space here.

 

[Steve Miller TX]

The most bizarre thing I've seen in the past 10 years? A tornadic supercell south of the Red River and east of Abilene/Wichita Falls and north of Waco and not in the forests of E TX. I know that sounds like the damndest thing, but it happened once or twice. I think it was a supercell that lost it's way from Kansas. ;-)

Seriously, the most bizarre makes me think of winter storms. One time in the DFW area I think back in 2002, a major sleet storm was ongoing with temps in the upper 20's and numerous CG bolts from the heaviest cells!! I couldn't help but think of getting zapped and then freezing to death under a pile of sleet while unconscious. The other time was snow in DFW in mid April one year. Of course, the heavy snowfall in the TX panhandle this past year in the first week of May was pretty unnerving. That should have been a red flag for us. ;-)

The one warm weather odd event that comes to mind was a severe dust devil in Denton, TX that actually flipped a car and caused some minor damage. This was confirmed in a police report and reported in the local newspaper.

 

[Kevin Ash]

I think the most bizarre weather event I've experienced happened in June of 1995. There was a marginally severe storm in southern OKC, warned mainly for gusty winds. I was standing in my backyard in SW OKC watching as the storm moved toward me from the north.

The storm pulsed up as it neared my neighborhood, and as I stood outside I became aware of a dull, white noise type of sound in the distance. The storm was beginning to gust out at the time, so I thought for a minute that I was hearing the approaching wind. But as the edge of the precip neared, the dull noise quickly became a roar, a distinctively different sound than the rushing water sound associated with wind.

The mystery was disspelled with several bangs and thuds as a deluge of golfball hailstones rained down and I ran for cover. I have been in many hailstorms, but only that one time have I ever heard the hailroar. I guess it had to do with the direction the storm came from, since there are more houses to the north than to the south or west. Also, I don't always stand outside and listen as storms roll in. In any case, that ominous sound was awesome.

 

[Chris DeRosier]

For me, I've seen a lot too, but the 1991 Halloween Mega-Storm takes the cake. In Duluth, it lasted 3 days and we received about 45 inches.

I've seen quite a few instances of thundersnow over the years, but this storm had the equivalent of the amount of thunder/lightning that occurs in a severe storm, only it was during a blizzard.

I'll never forget it!

 

[Miriam Lawrence]

This falls under the second-hand report of bizarre category. My husband (just my friend at the time) was sitting at the window of his apartment in New Haven, CT on July 10, 1989, drinking a beer and preparing to watch what was shaping up to be a pretty nice thunderstorm. While he loved watching storms, he wasn't a weather geek like his wife and didn't realize that a bright green sky is worthy of note.

Shortly thereafter, everything just "went white." The third floor skylight blew out and what he describes as the equivalent of a large mountain stream came gushing down the staircase.

When it was all over a few moments later, he noticed something quite odd. There was a coffee table in the living room that had one of those low shelves underneath, a few inches off the floor. The table was very close to the couch -- maybe 6 inches. The shelf had been full of large "coffee-table" books lying flat. All of them were now lying flat -- on the couch.

When he looked across the street, all of the storefronts had been devastated --like "a large hand had just come down and scooped everything out." What had been a piano and a computer store were now rubble and shattered glass, and the street was strewn with splintered wood and piano keys and broken monitors.

The culprit? An F-4 tornado -- one of the two strongest tornadoes to hit Connecticut since 1950. It damaged or destroyed 350 homes and 40 businesses and did $250 million in damage.

 

[Dave Kaplow]

The '89 New Haven F4 was the storm that galvanized me into actively chasing storms, as opposed to just thinking that they're really cool. But I never actually saw it. I saw golfball hail hitting my driveway, but never tried to view the storm itself. Regret over my inaction during that storm led me to decide that seeing a tornado was now a priority in my life. I've been chasing storms ever since. I suspect the CT area is overdue for another strong tornado, and this time I WILL be there to watch.

My weirdest weather event? Let's see, a few things come to mind...

There was a severe thunderstorm in the early '90s with very strong winds that switched over to snow for a couple of minutes, before going back to rain. Never seen that before, or since. I can't remember the exact date.

Then there was something I saw on my first chase vacation, and it seems almost trivial, except that I've never seen or heard of anything quite like it, and it certainly stuck in my mind. It was basically just a small area of rotating scud in an otherwise blue Texas sky... I looked up and saw this little white galaxy swirling away, a bit like an eddy in a stream - and I assume that it was indeed an eddy of some kind. It just looked so strange, a small perfect spiral of cloud that stayed in the same spot, rotating faster than most wall clouds, indeed the motion was almost tornadic looking. I have no idea what you would call this. It looked like someone had taken a thin cross section of an intense and turbulent vortex and pinned it to the sky. Definitely weird. And yet at the time it happened, I didn't even bother to point it out to the people I was with. It was my first time on the Plains and I guess I just assumed that such things must be commonplace. But since then I've never seen anything similar, unless you count horseshoe vortices, which it really didn't look much like. Call it a weird scud eddy, or something like that. Not exactly spectacular, but definitely weird.

By far the weirdest of all was something so strange I've often questioned whether it really happened like I remember it. Some friends and I were driving home from New York during a strong nor'easter, with frequent lightning. The heavy rain was changing to heavy snow... Almost at the exact moment of the changeover, there was a bolt of lightning that was colored. Yes, colored, multi-colored in fact. The flash started out red, then appeared to go through the entire spectrum, becoming orange then yellow then green, till finally it ended as a deep blue. It lasted for quite a while as lightning bolts go, and I never got much of a look at the actual bolt itself due to poor visibility from the heavy precip. I wasn't the only one who saw it, though, everybody in the car had seen at least part of it. We just looked at each other in disbelief! Did you SEE that!!! Wow!!! I have no explanation for the colors, but I suspect the timing had something to do with it. It happened right at the transition from rain to snow, during an instant in which big ice pellets were falling. Could it have been some strange refraction off the ice? I'll never know. That's my best guess, though.

 

[Hank Schyma]

2005

The Strangest Wx Ive seen was an extraordinary amount of blue sky!
Chase season 2005