stupid weather ?

[HotHolly]

ok, im a NYer. we have hurricanes up there. there is plenty of time to leave or duck and cover or duct tape your windows and what have you. ive gotten used to the whole tornado thing down here, but i have to say last night i was utterly confused.

i woke up around 3:30am and i have never heard wind like that when there is no hurricane. the portico around my front door was whistling as the wind blew through it, and it was raining sideways. no hail. no tornado warning.

when i went outside this morning, our house was intact, but there was a lot of damage down the street. a church has a marquee sign thing encased in brick (made of wood) and the wood was splintered and the brick on 1/2 of it was thrown across their lawn. Further down the street, the street signs were bent to the ground. Lots of split trees and other stuff you'd expect were thrown around and all over the place.

is that just considered a storm here? i was kinda shocked. you usually dont see that kind of thing. ive been here for 14 years and this was new to me. how strong does the wind have to be to do that kind of damage? im shocked my roof is still on. weaker winds pulled it loose. i totally thought my house was gonna lift last night. the wind was moving so weird.

[ka5txl]

Naw it's not a tornado until the cows start swirling around in air. Any thing else is just a little windy

[Gambit]

Yup, we get these heavy straight-line winds quite a bit. Not much around to disrupt them since it's relatively flat for such a long way around. And the downdrafts from t-storms spread pretty far. Also, have a look at this wikipedia article for info on bigger windstorms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derecho

[HotHolly]

cats dont count, do they?

[BigC]

Originally Posted by HotHolly

ok, im a NYer. we have hurricanes up there. there is plenty of time to leave or duck and cover or duct tape your windows and what have you. ive gotten used to the whole tornado thing down here, but i have to say last night i was utterly confused.

i woke up around 3:30am and i have never heard wind like that when there is no hurricane. the portico around my front door was whistling as the wind blew through it, and it was raining sideways. no hail. no tornado warning.

when i went outside this morning, our house was intact, but there was a lot of damage down the street. a church has a marquee sign thing encased in brick (made of wood) and the wood was splintered and the brick on 1/2 of it was thrown across their lawn. Further down the street, the street signs were bent to the ground. Lots of split trees and other stuff you'd expect were thrown around and all over the place.

is that just considered a storm here? i was kinda shocked. you usually dont see that kind of thing. ive been here for 14 years and this was new to me. how strong does the wind have to be to do that kind of damage? im shocked my roof is still on. weaker winds pulled it loose. i totally thought my house was gonna lift last night. the wind was moving so weird.

I used to sit in my apartment and watch the shingles fly off the roof of the next building over. Looked like bats.

[Flea77]

Welcome to Texas! Oh, by the way, when the cows do start flying, DUCK!

Allan

[dwilliams35]

It was actually probably a little tornado: they're not all these big F5, mile-wide suckers screaming across the prairie: there's a whole lot more little things that just pop down for about a hundred feet, rip up some mailboxes and tree limbs, then jump back up just as quickly... It's pretty rare for straight-line wind to be that localized...

[ka5txl]

Originally Posted by HotHolly

cats dont count, do they?

No if cats are flying it's just another sport in the Redneck Olypics

[cooltouch]

You can get high winds here in Texas without tornadic activity. Tonight, up in Montgomery County, north or where I live, they were reporting 60mph winds and hail the size of quarters. Very isolated storm system that blew through and was well west of Houston by the time it got down this far. Dang. Missed all the excitement.

[Teddington]

Holly, that was just good Texas hospitality... not sounding that awful siren in the middle of the night. After you've been here a while, you just sleep through it without a care!

[HotHolly]

Originally Posted by Teddington

Holly, that was just good Texas hospitality... not sounding that awful siren in the middle of the night. After you've been here a while, you just sleep through it without a care!

Ive been here 14 years....I dont hide in the hallway with a mattress over my head anymore. But this storm was wicked. I jumped out of bed to check the kids and see if there was a warning. Apparently they dont really bother with that at 3am.

[Dobick]

back in 2003 there was a storm that rolled through, got up to gust over 80 in the lubbock area. In Roswell, NM from that same storm, they recorded winds in excess of 110 mph. There was a structure that we had built to hold antennas on a roof, made from pig iron, and a 3/8 inch steel base. It was 4' by 4' by 4' cube and probably weighed 1000 lbs or more. It was blown over on its side and pushed to the edge of the roof by that wind. Very dangerous situation, but all straight line winds.