The clouds have moved in here and they are starting to boil........
the fireworks have started
and tornado warnings are being flashed constantly now!
Batten Down the Hatches Saskatchewan :(
over our backyard.........sunset is still a while away
This shot was taken just 5 minutes before the ones above.......these clouds are full of baseball sized hail.
Tornadoes
No other atmospheric event can match the sheer energy and fury of tornadoes. With top speeds of about 320 mph, they produce nature's highest winds.
Tornadoes develop in the rising-air environment of thunderstorms, and within tornadoes themselves the air spirals upward in corkscrew fashion. The stronger a thunderstorm's updraft, the more likely it is the thunderstorm will spawn one or more tornadoes. Because it takes a powerful updraft to keep hailstones aloft long enough for them to grow to large size (golf-ball or larger), the occurrence of large hail is the single best indicator of a tornadic thunderstorm. Not all thunderstorms that bring large hail will necessarily produce a tornado, but most tornadoes occur in thunderstorms that also produce large (golf-ball or larger) hail.
Rule: When a tornado approaches, always abandon a vehicle for more substantial shelter; even lying flat in a deep ditch is safer than attempting to survive a tornado in your car.
Fact: Half of all people caught in a tornado in their automobiles DIE.
When a tornado threatens, the safest place in a house is in the basement under the stairwell or under a strong bench, or on the ground floor in a small room (like bathroom) toward the interior of the structure.
This message was edited Jul 17, 2005 10:55 PM
Take care Lilypon! Let us know what is happening.
ggd
To give you an idea of the heat we've been getting my lotus from Perrynguyen has been growing great guns.....between the heat and the huge tuber he sent I figure I'll be seeing blooms this year.
This message was edited Jun 17, 2005 11:13 PM
I will if the lightning stays away Glenda! ;)
This calla too has been forced into blooming early.....outside is more humid than inside the greenhouses ever were.
This message was edited Jun 17, 2005 8:53 PM
Severe thunderstorm/lightning/tornado/wind/hail is in the nasty purple cell moving in on Moose Jaw/Regina and will then head northeast. This one could be really, really, really BAD.
Medicine Hat had severe rain.......unconfirmed reports of Tornadoes touching down. This is the first time I've considered heading to the basement.
This message was edited Jun 18, 2005 10:46 AM
Storms here (lots of rain and lightning so far), potted tropical and annual plants have been moved into the porch, shed or put under wood planks, garbage cans, tables, rhubarb leaves and steel bathtubs (remember the farm with no porcelin tub). Hope the brugs do okay....they have more tree cover.
Melville was hit with 100 mm of rain in less than 40 minutes. Confirmed Tornadoes and baseball size hail in towns below and west of Moose Jaw and a bad storm system moving up to Saskatoon.....we are under an all night watch (tornadic activity has ceased but could start up again). Cable t.v. has been lost. They say this storm is comparable to those in Tornado Alley.
I'd be in the basement, and packing for this coast, we only have earthquakes and tsunami alerts.
Be very very safe Pam, remember:::::: They are ONLY plants.
I got this from environment canada
city of Moose Jaw
10:18 PM CST Friday 17 June 2005
Severe thunderstorm warning for
city of Moose Jaw continued
A strong thunderstorm has developed south of Humboldt and is moving
slowly northward. Radar indicates the potential for large hail and
very heavy rain with this storm. A line stretching from Rosetown to
Humboldt is developing and will move slowly giving the potential for
local rainfall of 50 to 80 mm.
This is a warning that severe thunderstorms are imminent or occurring
in these regions. Remember that some severe thunderstorms produce
tornadoes. Listen for updated warnings.
Thanks Linda Ü......I hadn't heard the newest warning. DH and I quit and headed inside when the lightning was overhead and we were soaked. We started before it arrived......I refuse to lose my plants to the **** hail again this year.
One final one.....
here's a link to see the lightening strikes plotted on a map
http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/lightning/index_e.html
and here's a link to see the doppler radar. It looks like it's gone over you and now into Regina.
http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/radar/index_e.html?id=XBE
be safe
This message was edited Jun 17, 2005 9:29 PM
Here's the radar image of it too
What's showing on your map is certainly putting on quite a show outside of our windows right now Linda.
Yep it looks like yours is more recent......the lightning is still really active tho.
lets hope it doesn't do any major damage, anywhere.
I don't think that will happen.....but am hoping otherwise. The radar may show the storm further away but the lightning is really close again and I'm going to shut off the computer.
be safe, you can tell us about it tomorrow.
Lilypon.....those are quite exciting, albeit scarey, photos! Are you ok? Any damage???? Speak up girlfriend!
I'm here weeds Ü......the lightning made my puter make funny sounds. Moose Jaw didn't get any hail this time. I don't know any news since cable is still not working. :( We've got the radio out and on now. Hopefully others can tell us what happened here.
Moose Jaw's sidewalk days are on now (since Thursday). Eight blocks of downtown are cordoned off and tents, etc. are set up (the food and entertainment is fantastic). Jen came home at midnight looking like a drowned rat. They had opened up the stores so peeps could head to the basements if need be and then they closed down the night celebrations early.
This message was edited Jun 18, 2005 8:24 AM
From what we've been hearing on the radio there were 5 tornadoes in this area......it sounds like one was close to a small town and the others were sighted in the country. One farmer's experience was similar to Songbirds....his outbuildings disappeared tho. He said it was just like the movie Twister....they saw it coming and took off to the basement.
Hopefully you fared OK, Pam. According to The Weather Network this morning the front that brought you that nasty weather is moving east. Hopefully you'll get a reprieve from anymore scary stuff. They reported that although you actual temperatures were only in the mid 20's, the humidity brought it up to 30+ degrees. Whew, those are mighty sticky conditions. We'd all have hair like yours if we were there. :)
Dillpickle and Inanda, you'll have to keep us posted with the conditons in your fair province today.
Pam, oh my those are scary pictures. Sounds like you're okay. I'm very happy that DH and you are safe! Everything seems to be okay here. Very windy right now.
Hugs, Donna
Moose Jaw's opening up the flood gates and letting 200 cubic feet of water/per second (I think) is flowing out. They will increase it again today if Alberta/High River keeps getting drenched. We are on the hill so chances of our basement flooding is slim but the whole downtown area can suffer very quickly.
(repeat of a post in another thread).
Thanks Donna......I sure worried about who was going to get what we saw forming over our backyard. Will be leaving my plants covered..now that this has started it could happen again tonight (unless humidity, etc drops).
Gee, I forgot about you and Brenda in Manitoba, Donna. Hopefully that storm that is headed your way won't give you any problems like it did in Saskatchewan. You guys have been having pretty high temperatures though. 31C yesterday and that's without the humidity reading. Yikes!
I know at 6:00 pm our combined temps were 32C.....earlier we were around 34-35C. We were packing up the library and it was like we didn't have any air conditioning at all.
Well it better be okay tonight. I'm having DH's 50th birthday party outside. Otherwise it's going to be kind of crowded in the house.
:) Donna
Good luck to you in Manitoba.....Donna I think having that party is pushing your luck. ;)
I hope not...have no choice...lol.
:) Donna
Hi Pam, those are nasty looking skies that your pictures showed. Sounds like your OK now though.
Take care
Joan
Thanks Joan....we are much happier now (seeing normal storm clouds is much less stressfull). Must admit I was very worried when DS was working out at Superstore last night.....it's at the edge of town and that area has been hit by tornadoes and sheer winds before. The sheer winds scare me more than the tornadoes (they can have more force and they cut a very wide unforgiving swath).
Good grief, Lilypon, that's really scarey stuff!! At least we have a few days to get ready for our hurricanes. I know what you mean about the sheer winds, they call them straight-line winds here. In the hurricanes we have all over damage, then pockets of devastating damage where nothing stands. They always thought it was caused by tornados in the storm, and of course some is, but the National Weather people had teams stationed here with equipment to measure the eyewalls of the hurricanes and they found straight-line winds diving out of the eyewall stronger than tornados.
Sure am glad you have a basement. So many new houses in our Tornado Alley are being built without them....go figure.
Pati
Pati we can have two types of winds here: sheer force winds (from tornadoes) and *plough winds* that don't need a tornado to start them (they can be even deadlier than the sheer winds)......you can see the farming influence in the naming of them here. ;) The plough winds just show up and they keep going.....whole sections of towns can be flattened (similar to sheer winds but without the tornado warning). The summer that Edmonton was hit North Battleford had the plough winds.....a large section of town had most of the pine/spruce trees topped at least half way and some houses lost part of their roofs (no tornado was sighted and/or found on radar). That storm headed off to Edmonton and wreaked destruction there.
I remember talking to some peeps in Tornado Alley last year.....I can't believe they don't have basements!!!!!!!!!!!! At my great grandparents' farm they had both a basement and a huge ice house dug out of the middle of a hill....when bad storms were heading their way they didn't take chances with the house, they spent the night inside the middle of the hill (2 adults and 8 children).
This message was edited Jun 18, 2005 11:39 AM
That is scary, Pam. I didn't realize that your area was threatened so bad by tornadoes or sheer winds.
Stay safe!!
:) Donna
Pam, the weather has gone all screwy here too. After having a heat wave our temperatures have dropped to 17° with a low of 12° today. I'm back to long pants and a sweater on top of my t-shirt.
My poor garden. Sure hope we get some sunny days soon.
Joan
Those clouds look mighty familiar Joan! :( The cooler temps will be a blessing.....less chance of the tornadoes forming.
We are doing fine here now......those of you east of here keep one eye skyward this evening!
This message was edited Jun 18, 2005 5:57 PM
Most storms here hit the countryside but:
Conflict And Struggle
Story Of Regina Tornado Still Awe-Inspiring 80 Years Later
Saskatoon Star Phoenix
June 29, 1992. p.A7
"Regina -- As tall tales go, it's tough to beat the one about Bruce Langton's wild canoe ride through Wascana Park.
Not many people can claim to have ridden a flimsy canoe in the crest of a tornado, hurtling through the air and landing in relative safety in a park hundreds of metres away, still clutching a paddle.
But it happened to Langton 80 years ago.
"It's quite a story, isn't it?" says Bud Allen, a white-haired retired salesman who was seven years old on that sweltering June 30 in 1912 when the twister blew through the booming frontier town of Regina.
"Bruce was a couple of years older than me, in the same school, and I recall he never tired of that story."
Langton, 12 at the time, was paddling a canoe across man-made Wascana Lake near the legislature when the storm blew in. He and a friend, Philip Steele, headed for shore as fierce winds and driving rain swept across the shallow lake.
They almost made it. But a few metres from shore, the water heaved and the tornado lifted the canoe high in the air and spun it like a piece of straw.
Steele was flung from the canoe and killed instantly. Langton hung on as his craft rode the wind. A few hair-raising moments later, the twister deposited the canoe -- with Langton still inside -- in a park hundreds of metres away.
When rescuers found him later, Langton was sitting stunned in the canoe, a vise-like grip on his paddle.
"He didn't know where he was," Allen says. "Couldn't even remember the name of the fellow who was with him in the canoe. Nothing."
There aren't many people left who still remember the tornado that leveled most of downtown Regina, killed 28 people, injured hundreds more and caused millions of dollars in damage.
But Allen, 87, will never forget that Sunday 80 years ago."
This story comes to mind every time the skies darken and start to boil in southern Saskatchewan:
http://www.greatexcursions.com/excursion.php/CATEGORY_ID/11/ID/103/
This message was edited Feb 9, 2006 4:58 PM
We just got word that our barn in Briercrest was blown down to the ground this week.
Pam, the weather sure hasn't been kind to you and your family this year. Hope better times are ahead.
Do you go through cycles like this? or is this year's weather unusual?
Joan