StrmTrckrMiami
Weather Guru
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Posts: 148
Loc: Manchester, NH
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Re: Florida rains
Mon Jun 09 2008 07:40 PM
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As far as the past few days go in Lee County, Florida where I currently live, the following severe weather has occurred:
Yesterday, June 8th 2008 at around 4:30pm, EST, we got very ominous clouds in Lee County. The clouds were remarkable, we had several cumulonimbus clouds form, and the wind picked up very quickly. I saw lightning strike very close by my trailer park, and so I went inside to stay away from anything that was already flying around. As I opened my door, I saw a funnel cloud approaching and my initial instinct was "Oh **** " and I ran for cover inside. I stayed away from windows and such, and then BOOM, the whole trailer park lost power. The storm came and went so quickly, and it was not even that bad from what I thought it would be. It was not until later that night, when power was restored we realized that it was a tornado. Luckily, I got some before and as the tornado came photos. I'll upload them. Today it was confirmed by the National Weather Service that we did indeed have a tornado here in North Fort Myers. It was a F-1 tornado. Damage consists of shingles flown off of roofs, and trees down. After the storm, we thought it was over for the night, but it was not. Another storm approached us in Lee County, throwing more rain and storms upon us. It consisted as the night went on.
Today, June 9th 2008 at around 4:45pm, I was just coming off the bus to go to a local restaurant buffet to treat my fiancee to dinner, and noticed yet again, Remarkable cloud formation of cumulonimbus and alto stratus clouds forming. I knew that was not a good sign, and the sky was getting darker and darker each minute, and so I booked it into the restaurant. As we waited in the restaurant, and started to eat our dinner, we took a glance outside to see if anything had changed, and the first words out of my fiancee's mouth were, "I have never seen the sky so dark before. The last time the sky was like that was right before Hurricane Andrew hit Miami." Everyone began to get scared and nervous as they watched the wind pick up and the storm starting to head tword us. I knew it was going to be bad when I saw the American Flag flying in the opposite direction then it should be flying in the wind. People at nearby restaurants by us started throwing the trash in the trash can, and then as one guy stuffed the trash in the can, he booked it just in time. Lightning struck the flag pole and caught on fire. As the EMS arrived, the storm hit its worst possible. We were all inside the restaurant praying that we would live through this. The wind picked up to an astonishing 75 mph, and outside reminded me of a tropical storm. The rain was coming down so hard, and the wind was going so strong that it pushed the rain into the windows at immaculate speeds. The things that was going through everyone's head was "tornado preparation" and the restaurant was completely quiet. We all watched as the storm hit us, and caused several problems, between traffic being jammed to people being afraid to go outside, to lightning striking at a rate of 10 per second or more, it was not a very pretty scene. At around 6:30pm, everything started to calm, and we called a cab to leave. However, there was still rain and lightning, but not as frequent. We got home to find that water had gotten into our house, and our dog was petrified to the point where he was hiding in the cabinets.
I came home and found that our phone line and cable line was down, which did not surprise me at all, lucky we still had internet. I'm beginning to get very scared for what the hurricane season will hold this year for us. My huntch is the weather is only going to get worst.
http://www.nbc-2.com/articles/readarticle.asp?articleid=19717&z=3
http://www.nbc-2.com/Articles/readweatherarticle.asp?articleid=19729&z=29
http://www.nbc-2.com/Weather/VideoForecast.shtml (Click on the first alert weather at 4pm)
Here are photos:
I will attach photos, and some videos of the lighning. As they are too big to post here.
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