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Right now I am getting hit by thunderstorms and I got to thinking. Whats the worst weather I have ever been in. For me it was Hurricane Gloria. Having just moved from Puerto Rico and never seeing a hurricane there we get hit in Conn just as we are moving into the new house.

When I was about eight, a funnel cloud came down within fifty feet of the ground and went right over the top of our house. It ripped the tops off the trees and took all of the day's laundry hanging on the line with it. I watched through the window. It's the only time my mom says she was truly afraid for us three kids' lives. She crouched over the top of us like a mother hen as we laid on the floor in the kitchen.

Hurricane Gilbert, Jamaica in '88.

Hurricane Andrew, 1992.

I was about 200 feet away from a lightning strike once (I was inside my house at the time).

Last June, I was in Humbolt, Iowa when a powerful thunderstorm rolled through. The wind and rain reminded me of a Cat 1 Hurricane, though I doubt the actual windspeeds were that strong (maybe half that). It did spawn a tornado though, but no damage was reported.

That's a tough one. I was driving down I-25 to Denver one time and got caught up in a hellacious storm back in 97 or 98. That was pretty bad.

Though, I'd have to say worst storm ever was this big extratropical cyclone that blew into Eureka back in 05. Horrible, horrible storm. Roads got flooded, trees got uprooted, my plane I flew into on felt like it was going to crash into the ocean then the cliff. Power was out. Spent a long time drinking those 2 days.

That was the worst. Beirut has bad storms too, but they don't have anything on a winter storm on the North Coast.

I drove knowingly into a 150-mile long blizzard with roads that were ice and snowpacked. Two years ago the Monday before Thanksgiving traveling from Billings to Helena, MT. They closed Bozeman Pass while I was on it. That trip is about 220 miles....or around 3...maybe 3.5 hours. Took me over 6. Slid off the road twice while only doing 25 MPH. My horn stopped working around Bozeman. I pulled in to the folks' driveway, got out, and as I walked around in front of the jeep, I had a good 3 inches of ice on it. Only the headlights were visible. I wish would've gotten a picture, as the tunnels that they created were rather awesome.

Sure I've seen a few hurricanes during my short stay in North Carolina (Bonnie and what was left of Charley), and I've seen 2" diameter hail...the skies gone green...and even a funnel cloud, but that right there was probably the most stressed I've been about weather. I knew the weather wasn't great, but I was stupid enough to not be worried about it. After getting to Helena...never again. I left Billings at 11, thinking I'd have plenty of daylight, and I was just pulling in as it was getting dark.

Since I was active as a Skywarn spotter until about '04, I've seen a lot of severe thunderstorms, but part of the training is knowing how to stay out of the bad parts of them so I have avoided a lot of weather that I would otherwise have been in. As a spotter, you want to be an observer, NOT a participant!

Other than that, I've been through golf-ball sized hail numerous times and 70-80 mph winds. I've been through blizzards in Alaska and even after a 2 or 3 foot overnight snowfall we still had to walk nearly a mile to the bus stop and cross-country ski five miles during P.E.

Queso wrote:...even after a 2 or 3 foot overnight snowfall we still had to walk nearly a mile to the bus stop...

Uphill...both ways.

GQfluffy wrote:

Queso wrote:...even after a 2 or 3 foot overnight snowfall we still had to walk nearly a mile to the bus stop...

Uphill...both ways.

With a polar bear nipping at your ass.

Every see "Deadliest Catch".....That is my part of the world.

I personally have been in 90 Knot gusts
Unloaded a 727 in 60 knots.
Been on the state ferry in 45ft waves.
00 visibility both from fog and white-outs
And been down to -45F.

I once got to experience a microburst. It was about the coolest thing ever. Never seen air move in so many wrong directions.

Airfoilsguy wrote:

GQfluffy wrote:

Queso wrote:...even after a 2 or 3 foot overnight snowfall we still had to walk nearly a mile to the bus stop...

Uphill...both ways.

With a polar bear nipping at your ass.

barefoot with nothing more than a slingshot for protection

Typhoon in Taiwan or a hurricane in Jamaica.

Also a 6 day blizzard in Omaha NE (down to about -60 with windchill) was not fun.

Here on the Irish Sea coast we've seen wind speeds of 100mph+ on a couple of occassions. It's normal to see fence panels flying around during the autumn and winter here, but seeing the concrete posts that hold them in explode was quite a sight. When the wind is accompanied by the torrential rain that afflicts the Morecambe Bay area it gets really nasty.

miamiair wrote:Hurricane Andrew, 1992.

I had to drive to Key West about a week or so after Andrew. The TV shots simply cannot compare with seeing the destruction first hand. It was truley unbelievable.

For me - Hurricane Isabel - 2003 (I think)

In New Hampshire...the Blizzard of '78
In Bermuda...Hurricane Fabian, 2003

While in school at Embry-Riddle in 1982...waiting outside a classroom under a covered walkway, when lightning struck about 50' feet away...scared the crap out of us.

A few winters ago we had a really bad storm in the South West of England; dozens of trees toppled, flash floods almost everywhere and almost all of our fences around the garden levelled. A few miles away a measuring station recorded sustained gusts of over 120 mph, but luckily the storm blew out quite quickly.

This winter just gone was quite bad, I spent most of it on a Peninsula of land sticking out into the Atlantic, where the wind really bites. For over a week we had non stop gusts every day of 70-80mph, that was a real pain going out every night to check on the animals, and that the shelters hadn't been blown away!