Comments on: Move Along, Nothing To See

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:43:45 +0000

It sounds like a storm we had in June with almost constant lightning for almost 45 minutes. It was an eerie storm because the sound never stopped.

I know they have summer thunderstorms and tornadoes in the Midwest, but it is odd many violent clusters have sprung up and moved across this year. I know part of it was the odd track of the jet stream earlier, but that has returned to normal.

As Steve says, the MSM concentrates on the big markets, and ignores the outlying areas. You reported in earlier Michael, I was concerned about Lady Min knowing she was also in the area.

By: LadyMin

LadyMin — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:41:57 +0000

I’m out in the western suburbs, not the city of Chicago. And there was a lot of action out there too.

This morning the news confirmed there was a tornado about a mile from me. The wind gusts that I was watching were straight line from what I could see out the window. Part of me wanted to go out on the porch and watch, the other part was running for shelter in the basement. What was different this time was the amount of lightening. It was constant. This morning’s paper mentioned that the lightening was positive rather than the usual negative and that this made it more powerful. (I claim little knowledge of meteorology; I’m just repeating what I read).

It’s been a relatively cool summer here. The humidity has been high so it feels warm, but there have only been a few days above 90F. This is probably why my flowers look so lovely this year, and my lettuce crop survived until the end of July. Lettuce always dies by the 4th of July, when several days of blazing sun fry it’s delicate leaves.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:52:08 +0000

Actually, the storms were effectively summer-normal. We get derecho-type events like this about once a year, somewhere. The high wind gusts were microbursts, according to the NWS, as filtered through our in-house meteorologist. Chicago got all the notice, but there was quite a bit of damage further west and north that hasn’t. As of this morning, Commonwealth Edison was reporting there were still a couple of thousand people without power out here in farm country. A couple of my colleagues were in that boat yesterday, though both of them reported being back on the grid this morning.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:54:22 +0000

I wondered if anyone outside Edouard’s path would notice the ABC News coverage of Chicago and near non-coverage of this very odd but not weak tropical storm in Texas and Louisiana… not to mention its appearance in Florida in its early days. Does weather count, if it happens outside a major advertising market?

ABC always covers news from the perspective of a larger venue (i.e., bigger market) by preference… I learned that in the mid-Nineties, when the Houston Rockets were whupping the Bulls or the Knicks but you’d never have known it from hearing the ABC sportscasters… but I admit I was dumbfounded by tonight’s national newscast on the two weather events on the evening news. As for the global climate change connection, it’ll be a cold day in Texas in August before ABC News ever mentions anything of the sort.

(FTR, I love Chicago. I was almost born in Chicago. Dad loved it, but got a job in Houston after W.W. II.)

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:13:41 +0000

I was hoping to hear from you, Lady Min.

The patterns are messed up, and it’s not just the violent weather, but that’s what gets reported. No one cares that the Gulf Coast is getting rain during the wrong part of the year.

The highest temperature this summer has been 92°. It’s because of the cloud cover.

By: LadyMin

LadyMin — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:45:51 +0000

Tornadoes aren't uncommon in the Chicago area, but the severity has definitely been increasing. This storm was nasty and seemed to come out of nowhere. Within minutes it got eerie dark and the tornado warning sirens sounded. Gusts over 90 miles an hour are not normal and used to be rare... now it seems to happen a few times a year. Last summer I had damage from one storm with a neighbor's tree uprooting and falling on my fence and shed taking down 3 other trees on the way. A huge limb ripped off my walnut tree, flew over the house and landed on the driveway. Scary stuff happening here.