The most amazing atmospheric event you have ever witnessed?

[Angie Norris]

So many to pick from...

One of the top events has to be the first time I saw/heard thundersnow. It was March 13, 1993 at 7am when the Superstorm was blasting East TN with the blizzard. I had no idea at the time such a thing could exist.

Next would be my first Plains supercell. Coming from back east, you either see the top of the storm or the base (usually at very close range). It was amazing to see storm structure up close and personal (and it turned me into a structure freak).

The most incredible chase day I've had so far was May 29, 2004...tornadoes of every size and shape in southern KS.

This past spring, the Coldwater, KS storm on May 22 was so much fun. Watching a rainbow as hail was falling, driving home through a dust storm (I so wish that had been during the day...the vid would have rocked) and seeing the most incredible lightning display on the way home made for a very good day. The May 24 tornadofest near Perry, OK was so cool (and thank the deities there wasn't a rainwrapped beast in that cloud when it went through Perry!!!).

 

[Joel Wright]

I think for me it was an incredible snow squall that roared through back in Feb '03. It was like a severe thunderstorm squall line, with snow.

A compact, yet intense alberta clipper zipped across northeast Iowa dumping a quick band of snow along and to the north of the surface low track. To it's south, a tail of convective snow, with mixed snow pellets plowed southeastward across Iowa.

Ahead of it, temps were in the mid-upper 30s with a southwest wind. I remember watching it roll in from the northwest. It looked very similar to a spring-time squall line. It hit with a wall of very heavy snow and winds immediately changed to a northwest direction and gusted over 60mph. Visibility dropped from 10+ miles to near zero in a few minutes time.

It only lasted 10 minutes or so, but it deposited a quick coating of snow and then was immediately followed by sunshine. It really was an amazing thing to watch. I'll never forget it.

 

[John Peters]

Perhaps not the most incredible, but maybe the most significant:

I was 8 years old, and it was a sunny humid day on July 18, 1996. I pointed at the cumulonimbus clouds with pretty significant overshooting tops to my north and informed my parents and the guests they had over that those were "tornado clouds" (i did know what a cumulonimbus was). They probably rolled their eyes at me.

Turns out that it's likely the storm i was pointing at was producing the Oakfield F5 at or near that time.

 

[Christopher E. Kincaid]

The most memorable weather phenomena experience I witnessed was in October 1996 (don't remember exact date) here in Tulsa. We had a classic "Blue Norther" cold front sweep through the state one Friday afternoon. I was playing football with some friends after school (I was a freshman that year) when the front plowed trhough Tulsa shortly after 4pm.

We had reached a balmy 86 degrees for a high, and the temperature dropped to near 60 by 5pm. There were tornado warnings just east of Tulsa (tornado was reported near Okay, OK) while snow was falling in Stillwater! The temperature bottomed out in the low 20s that night with 2" of snow on the ground the next morning.

Another event worth noting is a shallow arctic front which stalled across Tulsa county (Jan 01?). The front was stationary with Temps in the mid sixties imediately south of the front dropping into the mid 30s north of the front. I remember driving about one mile and watching the thermostat in the car drop from 64 to 37.....IN ONE MILE!

Out of all the storms and tornadoes I have chased, those two events have amazed me the most.

We had something similar happen this year in Central IL:

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LINCOLN IL
943 AM CST WED JAN 30 2008

...LARGE TEMPERATURE RANGES ON TUESDAY APPROACH RECORDS...

THE PASSAGE OF A STRONG COLD FRONT YESTERDAY BROUGHT A WIDE VARIATION
IN TEMPERATURES TO CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST ILLINOIS. LOCATIONS THAT
WERE WELL INTO THE 60S EARLY TUESDAY AFTERNOON HAD FALLEN TO NEAR
ZERO BY THIS MORNING. TEMPERATURE DROPS OF 20 TO 40 DEGREES IN JUST
A COUPLE HOURS WERE COMMON IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE FRONTAL
PASSAGE. THE HUGE TEMPERATURE RANGE APPROACHED RECORDS IN SOME AREAS.

THE FOLLOWING ARE CALENDAR DAY OBSERVATIONS:

AT SPRINGFIELD...THE SPAN BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW TEMPERATURE YESTERDAY
WAS 54 DEGREES (HIGH OF 64 AND A LOW OF 9). THIS IS THE THIRD
GREATEST TEMPERATURE RANGE ON RECORD. THE RECORD IS 57 DEGREES...
FIRST SET ON NOVEMBER 11 1911 (HIGH 76 AND LOW 19)...AND TIED JANUARY
18 1996 (HIGH 60 AND LOW 3).

AT PEORIA...THE OBSERVED TEMPERATURE SPAN WAS ALSO 54 DEGREES (HIGH
58 AND LOW 4). THIS TIED FOR THE 3RD GREATEST RANGE ON RECORD. THE
RECORD IS A 60 DEGREE SPAN...SET ON NOVEMBER 11 1911 (HIGH 77 AND LOW
17).

AT LINCOLN...THE SPAN BETWEEN HIGH (62) AND LOW (6) WAS 56 DEGREES...
THE THIRD LARGEST RANGE ON RECORD. THE RECORD WAS A 61 DEGREE SPAN ON
JANUARY 18 1996 (HIGH 59 AND LOW -2).


AMONG THE COOPERATIVE WEATHER OBSERVER NETWORK...THE LARGEST
TEMPERATURE RANGES REPORTED FROM YESTERDAY AFTERNOON TO THIS
MORNING (24-HOUR PERIOD ENDING AROUND 7 AM):

LOCATION HIGH LOW DIFFERENCE
======== ==== === ==========
ATHENS 65 5 60 DEGREES
JACKSONVILLE 66 5 61 DEGREES
MASON CITY 61 2 59 DEGREES
WINCHESTER 67 6 61 DEGREES

WHEN TAKING THIS TIME PERIOD INTO ACCOUNT...THE TEMPERATURE DROP AT
SPRINGFIELD WAS 57 DEGREES...PEORIA 56 DEGREES...AND LINCOLN 58
DEGREES.

I was unreal.... everthing flash froze.

 

[BKDPhillips]

Hello,

The most recent exciting event was my first attempt at purposefully finding (not really chasing) and taking a picture of a wall cloud crossing over southern Kansas City area along I-435 on June 3.

Events based on year not based on WOW factor:
August, 1974 (??) - My fascination began with weather in earnest when a large storm came that caused the sky to turn to a Biblical night as my dad described it. I called to let him know that the friends I was with decided we didn't have to go to the basement because God would protect us. He came tearing out to the house and grabbed me to go home as the winds suddenly picked up. I was enthralled. But when we got home he made us go to the cellar just as the hail was starting. Wish I knew more about the storm!

1986(?)- Going out to view and attempt to photograph Haley's comet w/ my brother in the Flint Hills south of I-70 between Manhattan and Topeka! We were attending KSU, I couldn't get anyone to stay up all night and go with me so he said I needed someone out there w/ me. Never got good pics (didn't have the correct lenses for it or the money to get them)! BUT WOW! Did that for several nights in a row... remember thinking... "wish I was better at math and could study meteorology or astronomy". Instead completed my elementary teaching degree!

1988- Snow storm overlooking the Grand Canyon on Memorial Day weekend.....Beautiful - color contrasts crisp whites against burnt oranges and nearly a perfect cadet blue above and even slivers of sky blue way off on the horizon!

1989- Coming down the Oregon/Northern California coast on highway 1 and watching the fog advance in from the ocean then begin to roll as it hit the land for literally miles then slowly begin to overtake the cliffs and completely surround us. Being from Kansas, I had never seen the fog from above. Again the colors were beyond description! My husband will have to "dig out" the slides we took of that (hadn't thought of it in years!)

1997- On a whim, going over Loveland Pass in CO during a late spring (early June) snow storm and watching my kids enjoy the "excitement and danger" of the moment.

2006- March snowstorm at Mammoth Mountain, CA - whiteout blizzard conditions- several feet of snow and high winds. The locals asked where we were from.... they laughed and said the reason the slopes were so open because only the diehards ski in this weather! We made it home after several hours of skiing and many hours in the car driving back down the mountain. It was great to experience a mountain snowstorm finally!

Thanks for sharing your events and sorry I don't have all the exact dates/times/inches/wind speeds. I haven't been into recording the weather like you all do... but I am improving!

Belinda

 

[Eric Flescher]

followup to part of my discussion more about 7/16/1980 incredible drecho

I previously posted my short account of this : The exact date was 7/16/1980 as part of my part of the "most amazing ...."

(www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?p=184923"


It was early in the morning around 9:00am. I heard the storm was coming. I looked out the West window and saw this incredible rolling brilliant lime green cloud advancing towards us from the West. Gosh I wish I had a camera.

Here is more very interesting research especially for you hard core weather people (lots of formulas and numbers )


http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0434(1997)012%3C0613%3ADBTANT%3E2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1


http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/stories/1980derecho.php
"
As the forceful storms and associated hurricane force winds approached the area, several observers remarked about the horrid dark green color the sky took on as the squall moved overhead. In fact, numerous people over the years have commented about the "dark pea green sky" that accompanied the July 16th 1980 storm. The green color in the sky may have been reflective of the low sun angle at the time (the derecho moved through region between 730 and 930 AM EDT) and abundance of moisture in the low clouds. It got so dark that many street lights were triggered and popped on over portions of the region. Severe thunderstorm warnings were issued over the region though some remarked: "it happened so quickly and early in the day, it caught us off guard".

In fact"Winds estimated up to 100 mph in Washtenaw county, up to 150 mph in Wayne County"

:::

aka "The Green Storm"

(1) I remember the mammatus overhead as I drove to work and then the storm hit. The air was so full of rain that it was green. It was like looking into the bottom of a swimming pool.

(2) Driving Going To the Sun Road in Glacier National Park and driving up into a thunderstorm. As we approached the storm the wind was driving the rain into the mountain where it then proceeded to blast up along the side of the road. Raining up! We crossed the continental divide in the thunderstorm.

(3) My first tornado.

(4) The leading edge of a shelf cloud that became separated from the thunderstorm as the storm raced north. Looked like a curved lace curtain hanging over a rich green valley.

(5) Greater than baseball size hail in Hutchinson, KS.

 

[Stephen Levine]

There are several breath taking natural events that I have witnessed during my life so far.
Here are some of the most and in no particular order of importance:

* When I was 6 years old, my parents put me to bed at sunset time. I looked out my bedroom window one evening and saw 1/2 of the sky beautiful radient violet- pink with a thunderhead and the other half deep clear blue. Streamers of platinum lightning snaked through the pink cloud.

* My first funnel cloud that passed a couple blocks from my house overhead, May 1967 in Pittsburgh PA. All afternoon the sky had a strange sulphurous hue to it. When the funnel came, it looked like a silver-lined tongue overhead with cloud puffs rotating around it. As it dissipated, it looked like a watch spring unwinding.

* Watching a squall line approach and move in one summer night in Athens, Ohio in the early 1970's. In eerie silence and stillness, a great fog approached from the west. I could have sworn that we were about to get a tornado, as lights disappeared closer and closer to me. Finally the strands of cloud rolled over me with a chilly wind and funny scent, as flashes of lightning echoed behind it in the distance. I was so convinced at the time that I was about to be engulfed by a tornado that my legs were shaking from a combination of fear and awe.

* The "storm chaser chaser" derecho near Liberal, KS; I think 2001. It raised a huge wall of dust that reached the clouds and when it hit, we parked under a gas station overhang and directly faced the wind. A huge box sailed by at tree top level in a nearby field and the overhang bounced up and down as if a monster was playing on top of it. Everytime the wind shifted direction slightly, our van jerked abruptly. It was awesome!

* Driving into tornadic circulation in 2005, quite unintentionally and being stuck in the "bears cage" (Fowler, KS) Seeing rotating rain curtains w/in a couple blocks of us; seeing a wad of precip being literally thrown earthward to it's east, and the intense feelings all this brought.

* Seeing the Northern Lights in Brattleboro, VT; 3/1991. We looked up into a pulsing dome of light directly overhead; a vibrant celestial tent. This show extended clear into the Southern sky. We felt like we were watching creation itself.

* Being knocked to my knees by thunder - not the lightning-, Summer '72; Athens OH.
The lightning itself looked like a waterfall of electric blue and struck less than 1/4 block away.

*Watching a tornado lower to the earth approximately two blocks from our van, June 2005 near Fowler, KS. The lowering tornado would develop a smoke ring-type structure below the visible funnel, then fill in the space to meet the smoke ring, then develop a new one below and fill that space,etc. This was awesome beyond words, and I had never known that such a strange thing could occur with tornadoes up to that point.

*Watching lightning hit the ground just outside my car door window then slither across the parking lot (NH, 1986)

 

[Dave Kaplow]

My 5 most amazing atmospheric events, in decreasing order of awesomeness:

1) June 1, 2004 North Central TX sunset/rainbow/mammatus/lightning display. One of the most glorious things I have seen anywhere, almost indescribable, you simply had to be there. From our location the entire sky was a painted masterpiece, alive with constantly shifting colors made even more impressive by continuous lightning crawling in and around the mammatus and a highly color-saturated horizon to horizon rainbow. I was lucky enough to be able to spend the entire incredible 2004 season chasing out on the Plains and for sheer beauty and awe at mother nature this one sunset beat out (although just barely) any and all of the numerous tornadoes and supercells I saw that year. Almost a religious experience.

2) May 29th 2004 Jamestown KS meso and wedge. This was a close second, the combination of a huge barber-pole meso producing a mile-wide tornado and numerous smaller tornadoes made for an unforgettable chase day. As the meso that eventually produced the wedge was strengthening I remember looking straight up out the car window and seeing this huge upside-down wedding cake just hanging there in space... You just can't capture that kind of thing on film, it's too big, too real.

3) Multi-State fireball meteor seen from Milford, CT sometime in the 70's. Don't remember the date, I was just a kid, but it made big news at the time and was seen over several states in the Northeast. I remember coming out of a donut shop and I looked up and saw this glowing ball of fire moving slowly across the sky, not that far up at all, you could actually hear it spitting out big sparks and trailing smoke. My father called the police, thinking it might be a plane going down, but the next day we found out it was a big meteor. By far the coolest thing I'd ever seen at the time, and still one the most awesome.

4) Vermont auroral display, Norwich VT, early 90's (don't have the date, could have been same event Stephen mentions). I'd always wanted to see the Northern Lights and when I finally got the chance it exceeded all my expectations. This was an especially spectacular display that literally covered the entire sky with writhing bands of colored light, mostly various shades of green with just a tiny bit of red and orange, but the intensity and the lively movement and weird shapes more than made up for any lack of color. The locals all said it was the most impressive display they'd ever seen, and VT gets a lot of them. If there had been a bit more color variety this event would be #1 on my list. It was absolutely thrilling to stand out there in the middle of a lonely snowy field in subzero weather at midnight and watch the entire sky just silently go mad with color and light and movement.

5) Blizzard of '78, New Haven CT. Three days of heavy snow whipped by hurricane force winds into impossibly high drifts. The entire State was shut down, the governor closed all the highways and told everyone to stay home, but my friend had a 4WD wheel drive vehicle and we made it into New Haven which was unrecognizable under all the snow, with cars and even some buildings entirely buried. Downtown was deserted, but unbelievably Toad's Place nightclub was open, and the hardy few who made it there had a blast, drinks on the house. Getting back home was trickier, but we eventually made it, although I had to basically tunnel through the drifts on foot to get back to my parents house in Orange. This was a true Hundred Year Storm, outclassing everything since or previous. Although maybe if I'd been alive in 1888...

 

[Kristina Kelley]

(1) Seeing my first tornado...which turned into seeing my first TWO tornadoes at the same time (El Reno, OK on April 24, 2006)

(2) Pulling off the road somewhere in the middle of the Big Bend state park in Texas in the middle of the night and just watching the sky for a couple hours. I didn't know it was possible to see so many stars. It was incredible. It was definitely different from what I grew up seeing when I looked at the sky at night from a suburb of Dallas.

 

[Steve Bottkol]

Somewhere in Northern OK-May 08

Crested a hill while tring to keep up with a line of storms and this was to our east as we were traveling north. This pic does not do this justice, but it was jaw dropping.

 

[Dann Cianca]

I did not get any photos of this event ... but it definitely sticks out there ...

May 5th, 2007

Having chased in Colorado the day before (Greensburg), a friend and I decided to make the journey to Kansas for the following day. We spent most of the day under the dryline in WaKeeney watching cumulus tease us. Finally, when everything exploded south of Great Bend, we went to intercept.

I didn't have radar and nowcasting was spotting ... my nowcasters were chasing! After being an idiot and corepunching two tornado-warned cells one just before dark to get into Great Bend, and one just after dark to get east, we found ourselves in "position".

Not satisfied with what we could see, I decided to drive a bit back west and then north out of Silica. The storm was moving northeast, and us north. I figured we'd be able to get a good view. I stopped at an intersection where two other chasers were positioned. They immediately headed east ... this should have been a clue to me to get out of there.

Lightning illuminated an inflow cloud which seemed to disappear into the ground ... I was looking at a tornado ... but couldn't see the tornado. This was at 0240Z on the 6th.

Anyway ... oh yes, amazing atmospheric event ... it wasn't the inflow cloud disappearing into the ground, it was looking up into this cathedralesque vault with lighting crawling along the interior. I felt like I was in the biggest enclosed room imaginable. It humbled me.

I didn't trust the road east, so I headed back south through the thin curtain of heavy hook-rain ...

I got a little too close that night ... especially having no radar, it being night, only delorme paper maps, and being out of contact with nowcasters. That also humbled me.

 

[Gerard Jebaily]

I was on vacation in the florida keys about 10 years ago. We were fishing in our 21' Grady White about 10-20 miles south off shore. A very large and dark thunder head developed about a mile to our west and we decided to pack it up and head in (north).

As we headed back, 6....thats right SIX thunderstorm associated waterspouts all in a row formed along the storm front each about 1/4 mile apart from eachother. The storm was sliding to our east and it was a race to see if we would make it back to shore before it overtook us. We were weaving in and out between the water spouts trying to make it back. We came as close as 200 yards from one and were getting sprayed with salt water from it.

I dont have to tell you how intense the lightning and wind from a storm that powerful, that close out at sea is much less the 6 waterspouts that can easily capsize a boat.

This was the one weather related event that i wish i had captured on film or video more than anything. I have never been in so close to so many funnels like that in my life.


A close 2nd, was Hurricane Hugo as the northern Eyewall slammed into my hometown and the aftermath from it.

 

[nickgrillo]

• 3/12/2006: Springfield, Illinois / I-72

This was probably the most intense supercell that I've ever witnessed to date. Spent hours trying to catch up to the legendary "six-state" supercell before finally catching up to it just southwest of Springfield, Illinois on I-72. RFD winds just south of the long-tracked F2 tornado easily surpassed 100mph for approx. 10-15 seconds at my location, practically lifting my car off the ground. While I have seen my share of high-wind events since I've began chasing, and living in Michigan, an isolated gust may have reached > 120mph. From a meteorological standpoint, the conditions that day were pretty much as good as it gets, despite the fact storms were racing due to the raging deep-layer flow. A modified RUC sounding invof the Springfield storm around the time of impact yielded >500j/kg of 0-1km SRH and >2000j/kg of SBCAPE.

Unfortunetely, I don't have any of my stuff online right now. Continuous power flashes and lightning was briefly illuminating the tornado as it entered the city.