Whats the worst weather you have been in?

Mine would have to be a tornado when i was younger, it destroyed a neighbors house. At the time all I thought was “sweet a real life tornado”. I really didnt understand how dangerous they are.

Native of Buffalo New York, a few years ago we had a huge snow storm at the end of september/beggining of october. power lines all over WNY were torn down, most people didn’t have power for a week or two, roads were covered, etc.

I’ve seen more snow fall than that before but it always snows that much in december and january up in Buffalo so it wasn’t out of the ordinary.

Driving into “The Grapvine”, a mountain pass in California. We started with heavy rain mixed with fog to where you couldn’t see the cars in front of you then it started to snow. Not being able to see if you were in a lane and fearing to follow the read tailights of cars in front was very scary. I think it was close to two hours of crawling along under 10mph.

Tornado when I was 11 in Milwaukee. It was strong enough to blow out the windows at my grammar school. We were hiding in the basement and could hear them shattering on the floors above us.

This was awful
But I was only 10, so I thought all the snow was fun.

And this was so scary People were getting around in boats, our grocery stores were completely under water. My family lived across a bridge, so we didn’t get hit as hard as others. We live next to Philadelphia…flooding like that never happens.

There was a hurricane-like storm when I was in high school. Streets were flooded, power lost, businesses were closed, school buses weren’t running… but they didn’t officially cancel school! So, my mom made us go. She drove us (me, my sister and my friend from down the street). At one point we were just freaking floating down the street. We got to school and there were other students there whose insane parents brought them. Since half the kids and teachers didn’t show, they just packed us into the gym and called our parents to come pick us back up.

I was a on a hike with my 6th grade class. We passed another group going down the mountain just as we were hiking up. The skies looking uncertain. When we got to the top, it started to rain and we we were inside this old army base this with no doors or windows, just concrete. Suddenly, I thought the lights flashed on or something, then I realized it was lightning (we don’t get it much in Northern California).
So it started to thunder, lightning, and then the rain turned to hail. We went outside of the old army building and later found out that the crazy winds went up to 60mph. Our ponchos were flying all over the places.

I’ve also been through quite a few intense floods because I live near a river. I’ve had to help friends tie their belongings to their walls and ceilings hoping the water doesn’t reach it. When I was younger, my friend and I canoed down his road.

The most unpleasant I’ve been in is a simultaneous dust storm/rain storm here in Iraq a couple weeks ago. 5AM, still dark out. 50MPH winds, dust in your eyes, mouth, nose, then it starts pouring rain. The dust here is not like sand, it’s like flour, so even with sand scarves over your face it still gets through, and sunglasses don’t help that much either. The rain instantly turns the dust into the stickiest mud you’ve ever seen.

The rain did make the dust storm stop eventually though, so that was good I guess…

My freshman year of college.

surprise hurricane (really, surprise, no one evacuated because of it), earthquake, rash of tornadoes, blizzard, city-wide fire, floods, you know what—you name it, it probably happened that year

A hurricane. Power went off in the middle of cold weather. We had to stay at neighbors who had a gas stove.

Mine would be when I was about 10 years old. A tornado came through town in the middle of the night. It had been storming really bad and woke me up. I pulled my covers over my head because I was scared. That’s when I heard the “freight train”... and they are not kidding when they say that’s what it sounds like. Next thing I know, I felt my mom’s fingernails clawing at me to pull the covers back, she yanked me out of bed, and we met my dad with my little brother in the hallway. My dad, in a Superman-like move, grabs the mattress off my brother’s twin bed and throws it over us and plops down on top of it. We lived in a pier and beam house that had been lifted off the ground (because the house had begun sinking years before), and the tornado lifted it off it’s foundation and it sort of wobbled around, Wizard of Oz style. It was so fucking scary.

Hurricane when I lived in Port Richey, Florida. It knocked all these mirrors off the walls of my house and some of them shattered. It destroyed houses in my neighborhood but we faired ok, except for an outdoor shed and a debris filled swimming pool.

That would probably be on my college campus in Iowa, in about 1965. Damn cold place in winter, with no windbreaks anywhere within hundreds of miles. One blizzard blew so hard that you had to walk 45 degrees off where you were headed in order to offset the push, or you’d end up someplace else. Aim was important because while you were walking your eyelashes would freeze your eyes shut. Classes were not canceled. Made us feel pretty tough and strong, you know? California earthquakes just scare the heck out of you and maybe knock down your house or your freeway, but they don’t make you feel like champions.

Hurricanes in the Northeast (where I grew up) seemed like nothing by comparison, even though they did more damage. As a matter of just living through them, the Iowa blizzards seemed worse. My husband and I did unknowingly drive through the edges of a hurricane in Massachusetts in about 1979, and that was pretty exciting, but we weren’t out walking around in it.

New England blizzards were tamer than Iowa’s because there was less wind.

I was kayaking in Baja and a gale force wind came and nearly blew me out to open water. I had to take shelter on a nearby island while 80 mph winds and rain whipped around me. Fortunately, it was Baja so it didn’t get too cold.

Not anywhere near as severe as most of the stories above, but the summer after I graudated from college, I was rigging a show at a… major southern Virginia theme park. Summer thunderstorms were typical—you could smell them coming as the wind shifted and we got the smell of the brewery next door.

The park has “weather codes”:
clear = no threat
green = rain, but no lightning
yellow = lighting (rain or no—important for roller coasters)
red = thunderstorm

With various things you need to do at those times. We only had shows in the evening, but the theatre was outside, and not raked well, so water tended to come backstage. Me and two other guys stood guard with squeegees and kept the water flowing off the front of the stage. Eventually discovered that the fabric on the face was blocking the drain, so I jumped down into knee-deep water and cut away the fabric so it’ll drain.

About 5 minutes into this storm, one of the guys comes running out of the backstage and tells us we’re now in a “code purple”. We’re busy keeping backstage dry, but later find out that due to downed trees in the park, massive power outages, and hundreds of lightning strikes within the park, we’re basically on lockdown. No one (employees, or guests) are permitted out of the interior structures you’re sheltered in at code red until they determine that it’s clear. People were stuck inside for about an hour until they decided it was okay to let people leave the park.

Turned into a beautiful evening, and we had a great show with the 4k people still left in the park at showtime =)

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 Im from Buffalo, too. I was going to mention the October storm, and also a tornado. I can’t remember what year it happened though, I’m thinking late ‘80’s or early ‘90s.

@elijahsuicide yeah I remember that tornado, I thought it was either 94 or 96. I remember we almost had another one in 99 or 2000 but it never touched down. The inclimate weather in B-lo always amazes me. Still I couldn’t call anywhere else home.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 I looked it up. The big one was ‘87. It went right through my neighborhood (Cheektowaga). There have been a few since then, but they didn’t cause as much damage. Either way I guess whichever one came through your own neighborhood would be the worst in your mind.

@elijahsuicide yeah I remember the one twister really didn’t do anything. I was young in 87 so it didn’t really stick in my head. I lived in East Aurora/Elma when I lived there, the one in 99 went right over my house, which was pretty cool, tore up my lawn though :-/

It’s a toss up between a tornado, a hurricane, and a rare big snow storm – followed by an ice storm (in the same weekend) in the county I live in. The tornado damaged our roof and tore trees out of the yard and completely demolished my neighbor’s house. I remember just standing there in shock – I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The snowstorm/ ice storm – a big tree punched through the roof of my house, snow/ice above my knees and no power for 7 days. I had gas logs and camping equipment – my daughter and I toughed it out. The hurricane (Florida), I’ve been through them before, but seeing a lake forming in my backyard. No power for days – water damage in my house. Good think I actually listened to may parents and had flood insurance. Big mess.

@essieness : Holy shit!

@casheroo: I remember the snow storm. I was in Western MD.

The worst storm, tempest, disturbance, or whatever else you’d like to call it that I was ever in was my first marriage. Seriously.

Probably driving back home from school through the hills of Pennsylvania during a blizzard. 20 miles an hour most of the way up the expressway. Cars and semis pulled over all along the road. Single lane in places. I had to stop after four hours and 100sh miles because my nerves were fried.

Took a half hour break and kept going.

Oh! Fireside just reminded me of the worst driving conditions I’ve ever been in. I guess you could call it weather.

I was on the interstate and I guess a truck last a few loads of printer paper and someone hit them dead on or something. I’m not really sure. All I know is I saw a few pieces. Then a few more out the window. And suddenly I was driving through a storm of white paper—I couldn’t see anything. But I kept going and had some faith that I’d make it through. About two or three minutes later, the paper cleared and I was on the other side.

No wrecks. No mention on the news even. But it was the most surreal experience of my life.

@EmpressPixie – that would make an interesting movie scene.

Taken from a journal entry from when I was driving across the country last May:

“Then I experienced the apocalypse. I’m not kidding or exaggerating; there was thunder, lightning, rain, sleet, snow and hail ALL AT ONCE. I don’t mean I drove a little farther and it changed from one to another. I mean it was ALL AT ONCE. And it was coming down crazy hard. My windshield wipers were going full blast and I still couldn’t see a f*cking thing. I’ve driven in white-out conditions during blizzards, I’ve been in rain I couldn’t see through, and I’ve even experienced a tornado firsthand. But that shit was the craziest weather I have ever seen in my life. F*ck you, western weather. F*ck you hard.”

It was nuts. There was a wall of black clouds, and I wound up with a coating of slushy ice/snow on my car that went up to my second knuckle. It sucked!

Snowstorm last Christmas, on the German/Czech border. Driving with an old, not particularly steady car. I couldn’t stop because the winds were strong enough to push me off the highway (the road was frozen). I could not see anything because it was pitch black with no lights and snowing heavily. And driving was extremely dangerous, but I had to just keep moving forward until I reached Usti, after which the road got worse but at least the weather was better and it was a lower altitude with moderate winds.

I just found this article and thought of this question: Ten Cases of Extreme Weather

Can we say Hurricane? I remember two of my friends and I holding on to the cracks in the brick wall at school as the wind gusts literally lifted us off our feet and blew us horizontal. When the gust died down we headed for the nearest classroom and stayed there till it was safe to leave the school. Too this day I will never forget that.

Hurricane Donna in 1960 would be the tops I’ve survived. If your weather event of 50 years ago has a Wikipedia page, you know it was a spectacular one.