Spooky sound (not thunder) in storm E. of Road 71, 12 mi N of Stoneham: What was it??

[Andrew Burnett]

I am from Kansas and have heard the noise maybe 6 or 7 times during my life. The most recent time was when the cell that wiped Joplin off the map went over my house. It was a tornado warned storm, but nothing touched down. We did have golf ball to baseball size hail in it. That roar went on for a good 30 mins after the storm passed. I was outside playing in the hail on the ground with my 5 yr old at the time, and it just now dawned on my that, that was likely the time it was riping apart joplin.

Everytime we hear the sound we know it's a big serious storm, usually a slow mover too.

Another time we heard it was the 03 franklin/girard tornado cell... I was out at my folks place and didn't know it was warned at the time but we could hear it.

 

[Tony Lehman]

Finally, this has puzzled me for several years. I had experienced this Roar 5 or 6 years ago and have wondered to this day what caused it. Was camping in Northern New Mexico with a 31 ft Camper. One afternoon I slowly became aware of a distant thunder that was unusual, was nearly overhead and sorta faint. But what caused me to get up and step outside and look up was that this thunder was a continuous Rattle. Nothing could be seen in the anvil, just gray. I was camping near a mountain ridge and could not see the base of the storm.

I went back inside for awhile, but soon heard the neighbors shouting something and I looked out and saw them scampering around grabbing lawn chairs and stuff. putting them away. I thought - strange, so I stepped back outside. I looked at the storm again and while watching it seem to get closer, I began to hear a roar of a distant train. But there were no train tracks nearby or over the small mountain. Very strange I thought.

As I watched, the roar got louder and I actually had a thought of a tornado aloft. I started looking around for a ditch or ravine I might hide in if a tornado came. Soon I could see a gray curtain come over the mountain and begin to advance down the slope towards the campground. As I watched it get closer, I thought we would be getting a good welcome rain. But after a bit, I began to hear tree limbs breaking and brush snapping. Immediately I realized that it was hail. Have heard this before in Texas hailstorms before they hit. I had just enough time to grab the lawn chairs and get inside before the hail began to hit the ground. Was a big hailstorm, soon the ground was white and the temperature got cold. Could see your foggy breath.

I still have reminders of that storm in dents on my truck and camper.

Big hail - now it makes sense.

Tony

 

[JanelleHelling]

The last few days, we've had a lot of monsoon moisture storms across northern Colorado. These have been big rain events, not so much severe. I was thinking of going out for photos of some interesting features the other day, but the lightning was so continuous that there was absolutely no pause between flashes. And there was a continual roaring. In this case, the ongoing sound seemed to be the blending of continual thunder from a storm with extreme electrical activity. There was no precip falling in our location at the time. FWIW

 

[Jeff Turner]

Twice in my life I herd something like this but there was no hail. When I heard it there were some specific and unusual conditions. There was a strange east to west wind with clouds in a band, plus some isolated precip and noticaable surface winds.

 

[Jason Foster]

Irrr.....I know what it was....it was flames and hot air....given the way things have been the past few years. The closer to the internet you are...the louder the sound <joke>