Craziest Weather You've Witnessed thread

[Bigred]

You read it fellow Oubliettes

What's the single craziest weather you've personally witnessed. The one you can close your eyes and still remember like it was yesterday. We want descriptions, times and cooridinates.

I'll start:

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Hurricane Allen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Allen) (a category 5 Hurricane)
On August 8th 1980, roughly midnight
Edinburg TX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburg,_Texas)

The eye of Hurricane Allen passed directly over our house.

My family had boarded up our house, and we were in the country, somewhat isolated from other houses.

It was intensely loud and you could hear debris, small trees, anything not tied down blowing around and slamming into things. Electricity was out, so flashlights, bottled water and canned food only. News was from an old AM radio.

Then around 1AM within about ten minutes it went totally silent.

By brother and I (both very young) quickly ventured into our driveway. It was hot, incredibly humid, pitch black. Everything was flooded, I could hear water, and see torn down trees and debris everywhere. We looked up and saw only a tiny column of stars directly overhead, with only inky blackness around them to the horizon on all sides. We ran back inside and the other side of the eyewall hit within ten minutes, and the storm was back to full intensity.

I will never forget the night the stars were gone.

[Deadlift]

Unfortunately nothing quite as frightening or extreme for me.

I live in Torbay, Devon. It's known as the English riviera. Nothing as flash as the French one but we do alright weather wise. When the rest of the country is frozen under a blanket of snow, Torbay is usually without. I like snow but have only seen it reach ankle height once in my lifetime in my home town.

2002 myself and my soon to be wife were heading to Vancouver Island to be married. We spent Christmas with her family. Christmas Day, fantastic day cold and not a cloud in the sky. Boxing Day pissed down. Woke up on the 27th and we had 3 foot of snow. I was in heaven and spent the whole day building snowmen and sledging.

In Torbay going from rain to such extreme snow never happens. It was great and felt like being in Narnia.

[Mr Mystery]

I'm from Scotland.

Where it regularly rains sideways

[Psychosplodge]

Yeah we get the sideways rain too on occasion Mystery,

Weirdest I can think of is when we had a winter month's worth of rain in an afternoon in June.
And it's not unusual to stand on one side of the street and be able to see it raining on the other.
Or I once drove home in the early hours in about a foot snow, and there was no sign it ever snowed in morning.

And while we're talking weather. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24305230)

[Wolfshade]

Weirdest weather was perhaps warm rain. Very pleasent to cycle through despite being torrential. Go through a huge puddle and it was like having a shower.

Or the west midlands hurricane. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4725279.stm

[Denzark]

Heavy monsoon rains followed by flashfloods in Afghanistan. Our guard towers reported that the floods had breached old Russian minefields and the plastic anti personnel mines were floating away. Denzark was then 'voluntold' to get out in the Landrover and check which fields were breached. When Denzark kindly thanked the boss for the wonderful opportunity but tried to decline on the grounds of sanity, it was pointed out 'not to worry, stay in the vehicle - an AP mine will only take a wheel off, you'll be safe.'

[Wolfshade]

What a caring CO.

[Psychosplodge]

How long did it take them to fetch you from the vehicle?

[Denzark]

I did it, just drove slowly with my eyes closed.

[SotonShades]

I once was working in a hotel, living in an apartment so close it took me more time to get from the top floor (where my flat was) to the ground floor in the lift than it did to walk from the front door to the hotel. On the way to work, for a 4 hour shift, it was so warm I had to take my jacket off, unbutton my shirt a little and carry my tie and waistcoat. At the end of my shift, it had snowed so much it was above my knees and took me nearly twenty minutes to walk back because it was so windy. Fortunately, I had known a bit of snow was likely, so I did have a good ski-jacket with me. Still, Southampton doesn't see that much snow in a year, let alone in a few hours.

[SotonShades]

Also remember coming back from a cruise from Ft Lauderdale in Florida, heading back to Orlando, during a heavy rain storm. Saw lighting strike the opposite carriageway twice in the space of 20 minutes and a few miles down the road. Never seen lightning actually hit the ground before or since, though the guy who lives across the road from me recently lost his shed to a lightning strike.

[DarkLink]

I'm from California. I think I saw it rain once. Might have just been the neighbor's sprinklers.

[Psychosplodge]

http://youtu.be/abFJuqp867g