Will the Arctic Cold Front Cause Severe Weather and Damage to Crops?

In summary, the weather is gradually changing from cold to warmer temperatures. The forecast for tomorrow predicts that there will be winds between 20 and 25 mph with gusts up to 40 mph. This will create significant blowing and drifting of snow with near blizzard conditions possible at times. Visibilities will be reduced to below one half mile, making roads near impossible to travel on. The cold wind chill values will be widespread, ranging from 20 to 30 below zero. There is a potential for life-threatening situations due to the dangerously cold temperatures. Additionally, my aunt and uncle own a large strawberry farm and citrus orchard near Tampa, FL and stand to lose the entire crop due to the hard long freeze.
  • #631
Evo said:
Good thing you don't have warm weather crops planted. I've had gardens destroyed by early summer hail storms and winds. It's heartbreaking.
All of my wife's flower-bulbs are in except the ones that don't over-winter well, and they are mostly sprouted. Hope they're tough. My garlic is up, too, but that stuff can take a lot of cold.

My father just stopped into look at my new truck, and he said that he had 1/2" to 3/4" hail up at his place and it blanketed his back yard. Luckily, there are some decorative cedars on the back border of his place, so the juncos and chickadees had safe places to ride out the hail.
 
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  • #632
Baby, it's not cold outside right now. It's very humid and the day-time temps got up unto the upper 80's this afternoon. The severe thunderstorm warning has been lifted for my county, but the severe thunderstorm watch is still on. Last night, we lost electricity for several hours due to high winds, but at least we didn't get ~5" of rain like the northern tier of Vermont!

Earlier, I was cursing my neighbors' daughter's suitor because he has a massive subwoofer system that probably cost as much as that POS car that he drives. Then I stepped outside, and found out that those frequent thumps were distant thunder. I'll call my father soon because the thunder came from his direction and my old home town gets tornadoes every decade or two.
 
  • #633
My father said "Thank God that the weeping willow you planted as a child fell away from the house during the last tornado." Apparently the torrential rain and the gusting wins there have been quite destructive, but no tornadoes. Those apparently need a N-S storm that runs down the river valley and that 15 mile long hydro impoundment to form. There have been 4 destructive ones in the last 50 years, which is kind of high when you consider that central Maine is not exactly in tornado alley, and we are talking about two small towns.
 
  • #634
We have temps in the 50's and 60's, and it's raining, and more very severe weather in the forecast.
 
  • #635
Evo said:
We have temps in the 50's and 60's, and it's raining, and more very severe weather in the forecast.
Best wishes for you. We are still under a severe thunderstorm watch for tonight. My wife is at her mother's house (senile dementia) caring for her, so if we lose power, I won't have her to talk to, like last night. Just me and Duke.

Watch this while you can, before your power goes out.

 
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  • #636
turbo-1 said:
Best wishes for you. We are still under a severe thunderstorm watch for tonight. My wife is at her mother's house (senile dementia) caring for her, so if we lose power, I won't have her to talk to, like last night. Just me and Duke.

Watch this while you can, before your power goes out.

Get your wife a cell phone.

I love that video!
 
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  • #637
Evo said:
Get your wife a cell phone.
We both have cells, and we never leave them on. Old-school.
 
  • #638
We lost power for a couple of hours last night due to high winds, just like Thursday night, and we're under a thunderstorm watch again tonight. I'm sick of this weather pattern. At least the rain held off this afternoon, so we could get more plants into the garden.
 
  • #639
Once again about an hour ago, we were visited by a very active storm-system with lots of pyrotechnics. This time (we can win one out of three!) the wind didn't down enough trees and branches to take out our power and phone. I'd hoped to have the lawn dry enough to get a good-looking mowing job done tomorrow. Nope! Everything is saturated and is unlikely to dry, so the mowing job will be another hack.
 
  • #640
turbo-1 said:
Once again about an hour ago, we were visited by a very active storm-system with lots of pyrotechnics. This time (we can win one out of three!) the wind didn't down enough trees and branches to take out our power and phone. I'd hoped to have the lawn dry enough to get a good-looking mowing job done tomorrow. Nope! Everything is saturated and is unlikely to dry, so the mowing job will be another hack.
Buy some sheep or goats! :biggrin:

We just had a passing rain storm with lightning and thunder. Good thing I mowed yesterday.
 
  • #641
Wow! Wild weather this evening! We had some severe thunderstorms this morning, and tonight, it's much worse. There are twisters, 3" hail, torrential rains and very heavy winds. We have lost power several times, though the auto-resets managed to restore it. The rain was so heavy that we lost all signal to our Dish satellite TV receiver. We are under tornado watch until maybe 8pm or so. Springfield Mass got a pretty big one. Luckily, Maine is far more rural, and most of the touch-downs are likely to result in twisted trees in large swaths of wood-lots. When that happens, the wood can't be safely harvested because all of those twisted, springy trees are widow-makers that will let go with a vengeance if you cut them and release the tension.
 
  • #642
One of my best friends just called for reassurance after watching the weather. He lives on the coast and he found out that we were in the path of tornadoes/severe storms. Nice to get such a call.

BTW, he is a fellow musician and was my 1-year younger sister's first husband. I don't speak to her, really (not important why), but he and I get together with our wives and have BBQs, share labor on home-improvement projects, winter maintenance, and other fun stuff. He is the reason that I have an L2800 Kubota tractor, since he uses on on his job, and bought one for home use. Good stuff.
 
  • #643
Turbo,

Here you go, Springfield, Mass http://bcove.me/r7hv8dry" .

Compared to what those poor souls down in the deep south have been experiencing, this is a freak occurrence that gets the locals and media stirred up good, the weatherman says the jet stream could be in a pattern that will bring more our way in the near future. There are some fast moving, fast rising cumulus clouds moving our way, but no big deal here in Rhody... the front is moving to the north west at about 45 - 50 mph.

Rhody... reporting from well, Rhody... hehe
 
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  • #644
Back in the severe thunderstorm pattern right now, but hopefully no tornadoes. The lightning strikes have been abating, though the rain is heavy and the sky has a strange yellow color.
 
  • #645
Hang in there turbo! I saw the same video Rhody di!

Hope your garden escapes damage.
 
  • #646
Evo said:
Hang in there turbo! I saw the same video Rhody di!

Hope your garden escapes damage.
It's early, and we can replant and hope. When I was a kid we had hard frosts in early June, and managed to get usable amounts of vegetables after replanting. I hate late string beans, though. They get really tough and stringy by the time they are mature, so you have to pick them when they are small. The heavy rain has resumed, and everything outdoors looks like I am viewing it through an old pair of amber Ray-Ban shooting glasses (yes, I have them).
 
  • #647
turbo-1 said:
It's early, and we can replant and hope. When I was a kid we had hard frosts in early June, and managed to get usable amounts of vegetables after replanting. I hate late string beans, though. They get really tough and stringy by the time they are mature, so you have to pick them when they are small. The heavy rain has resumed, and everything outdoors looks like I am viewing it through an old pair of amber Ray-Ban shooting glasses (yes, I have them).

We dodged a bullet here, a little wind, thunder, a small amount of rain, the front just missed us. What are your concerns Turbo, crops damaged due to hail and or wind,l just too much rain ?

Rhody...
 
  • #648
rhody said:
We dodged a bullet here, a little wind, thunder, a small amount of rain, the front just missed us. What are your concerns Turbo, crops damaged due to hail and or wind,l just too much rain ?

Rhody...
Hail and too much (HEAVY) rain are my main concerns. The petals of the blossoms of my apple, plum, and peach trees have been decimated. Petals are the visual cue for pollinators, so I fear that we will lose a lot of yield this year.
 
  • #649
turbo-1 said:
Hail and too much (HEAVY) rain are my main concerns. The petals of the blossoms of my apple, plum, and peach trees have been decimated. Petals are the visual cue for pollinators, so I fear that we will lose a lot of yield this year.

I don't know if I want to go there, but a little birdie in my head just spoke, "Try Evo's vibrator technique", to artificially pollinate what flowers remain.

Is Evo listening, shhh... Rhody crawls under a rock.

Rhody... :redface:
 
  • #650
turbo-1 said:
Wow! Wild weather this evening! We had some severe thunderstorms this morning, and tonight, it's much worse. There are twisters, 3" hail, torrential rains and very heavy winds. We have lost power several times, though the auto-resets managed to restore it. The rain was so heavy that we lost all signal to our Dish satellite TV receiver. We are under tornado watch until maybe 8pm or so.

You're not in Kansas anymore. Oh wait. Maybe you are.
 
  • #651
dlgoff said:
You're not in Kansas anymore. Oh wait. Maybe you are.
Sure felt like it yesterday, dlg! Calm and cool this morning, though my garden looks a bit forlorn. I have all the rows hilled up, so even though the garden is in a low spot comparatively, the raised rows should be able to dry up in the next day or so. I am really glad that I resisted the urge to mulch more of the garden. I keep my garlic mulched with oat straw so that the cloves are sheltered and protected from temperature extremes throughout the winter, but that's the only mulch in the garden. My neighbor mulches everything but corn, and because of this stretch of wet weather, he lost about all his cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage to slugs and had to start more plants in his greenhouse. Slugs thrive under wet straw mulch!
 
  • #652
turbo-1 said:
My neighbor mulches everything but corn, and because of this stretch of wet weather, he lost about all his cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage to slugs :eek: and had to start more plants in his greenhouse. Slugs thrive under wet straw mulch!

Sprinkle a bit of table salt on them, dessicates them, and they shrivel up like the wicked witch of the west.

Rhody...
 
  • #653
Well, I visited a nearby neighbor a while ago (I took Duke down to his place on the ATV for some exercise). It's only a few hundred yards from here, and I knew some of those lightning strikes last night were close, but not THAT close. His Ford Ranger was parked in the driveway, and got nailed. The lightning burnt off the hood-mounted CB antenna, scorched the paint, and traveled through the chassis to ground, where it ripped a 5'-long trench in his gravel drive. The alternator is fried, and who knows what else. Unfortunately, he is most recently from western Mass, and his insurance company is just a little bit busy because of the Springfield-area tornadoes. This is the second pickup truck of his that has been damaged by a lightning strike - the last was a decade or so ago in Mass. He and his wife are going to Hollywood Slots tonight to gamble - maybe he's used up all of his bad luck for a day or two, and will have a good time.
 
  • #654
turbo-1 said:
Well, I visited a nearby neighbor a while ago (I took Duke down to his place on the ATV for some exercise). It's only a few hundred yards from here, and I knew some of those lightning strikes last night were close, but not THAT close. His Ford Ranger was parked in the driveway, and got nailed. The lightning burnt off the hood-mounted CB antenna, scorched the paint, and traveled through the chassis to ground, where it ripped a 5'-long trench in his gravel drive. The alternator is fried, and who knows what else. Unfortunately, he is most recently from western Mass, and his insurance company is just a little bit busy because of the Springfield-area tornadoes. This is the second pickup truck of his that has been damaged by a lightning strike - the last was a decade or so ago in Mass. He and his wife are going to Hollywood Slots tonight to gamble - maybe he's used up all of his bad luck for a day or two, and will have a good time.
Good grief. I haven't been attacked by lightning since I moved out of the pit of doom. Four times there (on the house), remember a few more in the yard. The last time was the most damaging.
 
  • #655
Evo said:
Good grief. I haven't been attacked by lightning since I moved out of the pit of doom. Four times there (on the house), remember a few more in the yard. The last time was the most damaging.
His house and driveway are underlain by solid ledge - perfect ground for strikes. At least the lightning didn't take out his submersible well-pump. I lost one to a lightning strike decades ago when my wife and I were living in a ratty house-trailer saving up money for a decent down-payment. That really sucked because it's pretty hard to prove to your insurance company that your $$$ well-pump died due to a lightning strike, and I had to buy one out-of-pocket.

BTW, how did you manage to force yourself to stay in a house that had been targeted four times? I would have looked elsewhere.
 
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  • #656
We got through the tornado warnings with no direct hits, but people in the next town to the west weren't as lucky. There were no fatalities, but there was a lot of damage, including to houses, outbuildings and vehicles. A tanker truck was tossed into a ditch on its side, despite having a full tank of sewage from pumping out septic tanks. A utility pole, power lines and trees were on the truck, trapping the driver inside until power could be shut off so the rescue crews could get him out.

Mess_cont.jpg
 
  • #657
turbo-1 said:
BTW, how did you manage to force yourself to stay in a house that had been targeted four times? I would have looked elsewhere.
Same reason I didn't move after the floodings and the baseball size hailstorm. Not sure where around here I'd be safer.
 
  • #658
Evo said:
Same reason I didn't move after the floodings and the baseball size hailstorm. Not sure where around here I'd be safer.

Yep. Ain't Kansas hell?
 
  • #659
dlgoff said:
Yep. Ain't Kansas hell?

...there's no place like home...
 
  • #660
WhoWee said:
...there's no place like home...

Since I've lived in Kansas, I've seen houses floating down the Kansas river and also flying through the air. I'm just glad I still have a home. :biggrin:
 
  • #661
dlgoff said:
Since I've lived in Kansas, I've seen houses floating down the Kansas river and also flying through the air. I'm just glad I still have a home. :biggrin:

I used to visit KC quite often. One one trip (circa 1982 or 83) we drove through an area where flood waters had just receded - I saw cars stuck in trees about 30' off the ground.
 
  • #662
WhoWee said:
I used to visit KC quite often. One one trip (circa 1982 or 83) we drove through an area where flood waters had just receded - I saw cars stuck in trees about 30' off the ground.
That must have been one hell of a flood-surge!
 
  • #663
turbo-1 said:
That must have been one hell of a flood-surge!

It was in a small valley - the mud was near the tops of the trees.
 
  • #664
WhoWee said:
It was in a small valley - the mud was near the tops of the trees.
Most of the larger rivers and streams around here have hydro-dams on them, and they are managed for flood-control as well as for electrical power. I just checked and Kansas has exactly one hydro-dam - the Bowersock, on the Kansas river, which drops less than 2'/mile. Not much of a head to exploit for power.
 
  • #665
turbo-1 said:
Most of the larger rivers and streams around here have hydro-dams on them, and they are managed for flood-control as well as for electrical power. I just checked and Kansas has exactly one hydro-dam - the Bowersock, on the Kansas river, which drops less than 2'/mile. Not much of a head to exploit for power.

Yep. But they are building a new one on the other side of the river right now, which is just north of 6th street. But back when I was a kid, this is what 6th street looked like during the flood that is impressed in my mind.

[PLAIN]http://ks.water.usgs.gov/waterwatch/flood/ljw_21.jpg

http://ks.water.usgs.gov/waterwatch/flood/fld51.photos.html"
 
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