"A giant gust of wind picked up a tarp and garbage from across the field and flung it toward the audience and lifted the whole stage — where Cheap Trick had been playing — and almost like a convertible in a car, just folded it backwards in the same direction."
The
main stage at the Ottawa Bluesfest
has collapsed in a sudden storm, during a performance by
Cheap Trick. Injuries are reported to be minor. The
annual festival brings thousands of music fans into downtown Ottawa.
Photos of the
aftermath.
posted by ricochet biscuit
on Jul 17, 2011 -
43 comments
On April 12th, prior to the Alabama outbreak and about 6 weeks before a tornado tore through the middle of mostly basement-less Joplin, MO, Colleen Bogener wrote a
short editorial on the need for public storm shelters in Joplin. There was a short bit of discussion in response.
posted by spock
on May 25, 2011 -
71 comments
A wave of powerful storm cells swept the southeastern United States this week, spawning
hundreds of tornadoes that wreaked havoc from Texas to Virginia. While damage was widespread throughout the region, the most terrible toll was seen in Alabama, which has accounted for two-thirds of
the more than 300 reported deaths -- the deadliest since the Great Depression -- and where
many small towns were simply wiped from the map. Especially hard-hit was the university town of Tuscaloosa, the state's fifth-largest, where a monstrous F5 tornado (seen in
this terrifying firsthand video) tore a
vicious track through entire neighborhoods and business districts -- narrowly missing the region's primary hospital -- and continuing a path that rained debris as far as Birmingham, over sixty miles away. The disaster
prompted a visit from President Obama today, who declared
"I've never seen devastation like this" after surveying the area with Governor Robert Bentley, Senator Richard Shelby, and
Mayor Walter Maddox. More: photos from
In Focus and
The Big Picture,
aerial footage of the aftermath,
"before and after" sliders, the path of the Tuscaloosa twister
on Google Maps,
People Locator,
local aid information,
MetaTalk check-in thread
posted by Rhaomi
on Apr 29, 2011 -
102 comments
John Park Finley, American meteorologist, wrote the
first known book on tornadoes (
Tornadoes, 1887). Though some of his "safety" guidelines for surviving a tornado have since been refuted as dangerous (seek shelter on the side of a house facing an oncoming tornado!), the book remains a seminal work in tornado research.
[more inside]
posted by Wossname
on Jan 25, 2011 -
9 comments
Leaves giant sinkhole. At least 115 people have died after a tropical storm battered Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador over the weekend, officials in those countries reported.
posted by pallen123
on May 31, 2010 -
84 comments
Stunning pictures by Michael Yon show what happens when helicopters land in dust storms:
The Kopp-Etchells Effect is thought to be the result of static electricity created by friction as materials of dissimilar material strike against each other, in this case titanium/nickel blades moving through the air and dust, but a precise definition is as of now not known.
[more inside]
posted by krautland
on Nov 21, 2009 -
33 comments
Fried Gibson. I've always thought you were safe in a house from lightning storms as long as you were off the land-line or computer. A Mississippi man's Gibson Les Paul got positively roasted while sitting in his home, in its case, leaning against a wall.
That's a powerful bolt.
Lots of gory photos here and in the auction linked above including a nice shot of some of
the parts that exploded off of the guitar, some shooting
like bullets through the case.
Awesome! And it still held quite a bit of its value.
Via [more inside]
posted by JBennett
on Jul 10, 2009 -
49 comments
If Bruce Schneier, the
expert voice of
security moderation, is "worried" than so am I. Since the beginning of the year Storm, an advanced, distributed worm network has been growing quietly as its authors tweak its social engineering attack. Now it seems that it is in place and waiting. Schneier's
article. Digital Intelligence and Strategic Operations Group has been
monitoring Storm for a year.
OWL.
posted by shothotbot
on Oct 15, 2007 -
89 comments
Paraglider survives 32,000ft fall. A German paragliding champion named
Ewa Wisnierska was "sucked into a storm that pulled her higher than Mount Everest." She "soared skywards," and was soon "covered in ice" as she "battled hailstones the size of oranges," becoming one with the weather. "I could see the Earth coming," she later said, "wow, like
Apollo 13 – I can see the Earth."
posted by BLDGBLOG
on Feb 16, 2007 -
57 comments
Noted in the live stream from this TV station This is the "Local2 News" live tv stream (which has been pointed to in three previous MeFi threads about other news stories.
Currently they've from time to time been showing storm track predictive models (which they say are their own development).
I'd rather have pointers to more models than the TV station's occasional glimpses, but, this is the most varied set of storm track predictions I've seen. Anyone know where they're getting them?
posted by hank
on Sep 22, 2005 -
24 comments
17 Divers Die In HurricaneFrom NPR: Hurricane Iris struck Belize earlier this week. The storm took few victims. Those who died were all members of the same scuba expedition from the Dive Club of Richmond, Va. NPR's Andrea Seabrook went to a meeting of the club, where surviving members talked about the friends they lost and the trust that exists between divers.
NPR's RealAudio report
posted by hotdoughnutsnow
on Oct 10, 2001 -
6 comments
