Just wanted to share my, ah, interesting drive home from work yesterday.
This is Florida. ; South Florida to be specific. ; We have thunderstorms. ; Often. ; Driving in severe thunderstorms is really not a big deal for me, as I do it dozens of times a year, sometimes for weeks on end. ; I've got good rain vision, an AWD car, and can pretty much drive as well in wet as in dry. ; So when I mention that driving was a bit challenging yesterday...you can bank on it!
At around 5:30pm, I left work in Coral Springs FL, for my roughly 24 mile commute home to Boca Raton...my drive is pretty much ENE, though there's no direct diagonal route, so it's like stairs...North, East, North, East. ; Typically, it takes around 40 minutes in good weather, with typical rush hour traffic. ; When leaving my office, I noted the completely black sky to the west...very close...with a distinguishable funnel cloud and a ton of lightning. ; The funnel cloud was rotational with a small stem, but not extending downward in any way. ; No biggie - our severe thunderstorms often result in funnel clouds, but rarely in tornadoes.
I stopped off at a coworker's house to pick up a key - I'll be feeding her cat for her while she's gone next week, since her house is on my way home. ; She lives in Parkland...which much like the name implies is a very tree-covered neighborhood just to the north of Coral Springs. ; The storm caught up while I was at her house, with the rain coming down in barrels and winds picking up pretty heavily. ; Again...no biggie. ; This is normal late afternoon stuff for us in the summer. ; I lunged out to my car in the heavy rain and jumped inside...this rain was intense! ; And now the lightning seemed to be falling much more frequently and close...every 1 to 2 seconds was a bright strike to the ground, with the thunder following just about the time you were blinking the burned image off your retina. ; I drove down to the end of her street - about 100 yards - when the skies started lighting up with a crazy purplish blue flashing. ; Many of these flashes were blazing in between the lightning strikes - familiar with these from hurricane experience, I knew power transformers were arc-ing which meant lightning struck one or a line was impacted by a branch. ; No biggie. ; Well, actually, small biggie - her neighborhood has electric gates for entry/exit, and the power was now out - so they didn't open for me when I tried to leave. ; It was a small biggie, because my car was low enough and the gap big enough between the two gates that I could squeeze through them with my roofrails touching. ; Freedom!
Hitting the main road, I turned north to head out to my normal route home...realizing this was definitely some of the hardest rain I'd ever seen - I had trouble making out more than 10 feet of road in front of me, and the wipers were on high, flapping hard enough to look like they wanted the car to fly. ; The powerline flashes continued, now much closer as I noticed it was the poles lining the road I was on...several arc-ed out huge sparks just feet from my car as I drove past. ; I didn't drive far though, as I came upon a 70-foot Australian pine tree that had fallen across the road, taking the powerlines with it. ; Several of the now-disconnected lines were dancing in the street with sparklers at their tips...time to back up! ; Boy, were the winds really picking up now! ; My low-profile car was bouncing back and forth, and large tree branches nearly the size of my car were rolling across the road like twigs. ; Had to be running 60MPH or more. ; Turned around and driving south to the next cross street so I could head home, I was quickly blocked by another pine tree falling down across the road...but this one luckily took one bounce, then did a cartwheel and bounced right over the road to the other side. ; A few of the loosened power poles that were pulled by the tree threatened to come down on the road too - but they were kind enough to lift themselves out of the ground and fly horizontally across the road to the other side...leaving my path clear.
Hold on...back up a second. ; The tree CARTWHEELED?! ; The power poles lifted UP and FLEW?! ; Yes, I confirmed to myself...that is what I was seeing.
OK, so I'm driving in the tornado. ; (!!) ; Apparently, that friendly funnel cloud I noticed earlier had managed to huff and puff and turn itself into probably a minor EF1 tornado...or even the beginnings of one that just started to ruffle things up but didn't quite form all the way. ; I'd never quite had that before. ; With huge winds whipping across the road, I was quite happy to have a lower profile car designed for Autobahn speeds, rather than my old high profile SUVs I used to have. ; I made it out to the major road and proceeded east as quickly as I could make with that visibility (about 10MPH). ; Roads were now 3-4 inches of standing water, with branches and debris everywhere. ; At the main intersection (8-lanes by 6-lanes), the power was out, and though I really couldn't see much past my hood now, I did notice that hundreds of cars in commuter traffic were not moving at all - completely parked in their lanes with emergency lights on. ; What should have been challenging, crossing an 8-lane road at rush hour with no traffic signals, was actually quite easy...noone else was moving but me.
All the while, the winds were still running up in tropical-storm force or better. ; Big chunks of trees were all over the roads, as well as petrified drivers stopped in their places, reducing driving to a 5MPH slalom course. ; Lightning was striking the ground, prominently, every 1 to 2 seconds - I saw the top of a drug store, a tree, and a traffic signal pole all get struck within 100 feet of me. ; I was hoping to continue moving east, to get out of the way of this funnel cloud, which it seemed was moving more to the Northeast. ; This was somewhat unfortunate, as that is my direction home, and it was the direction this storm was travelling too. ; About this time, a cloying metal clanking noise...more of a pinging noise, started up. ; First it was infrequent, but then picked up into a cacaphony. ; Tink tink tink clang tink clang. ; Ah yes, our friend Hail! ; Hard to imagine the very concept of balls of ice falling out of the sky in the tropics in the summer when temps were running in the high 90s...but balls of ice they were, and falling they were. ; Fortunately, they were between pea-sized and dime-sized...small enough that sheetmetal damage was unlikely. ; But the last thing I needed in this apocalyptic hellfire-and-damnation storm was another weather extremity.
The easterly drive was accompanied the entire way by lightning strikes walloping the ground and everything on it, winds running comfortably in the 50MPH range, rain coming down at Niagara-falls rate, and the receding hail which fortunately only lasted about 5 minutes. ; Turning north, I reintersected the storm's intense heart...hoping the funnel cloud had pulled back its stem at least, and stopped trying to vaccuum up the landscape. ; The intensity picked up from 8 back to 9 again, and the debris fields started to show up as I entered my town of Boca Raton. ; The final 4 miles to my house was again a slalom course, with large branches, palm fronds, and a few toppled trees all littering the roadway, and a 6-lane thoroughfare of rush hour traffic was reduced to a 5MPH conga-line of single file cars weaving their way through all three lanes like rats in a maze, trying to find a way through the debris. ; Mother nature, not liking to play fair, was still rearranging the maze too - dropping new branches, and moving others with her huge winds. ; I was happy to at least notice power was on in my town - a step up on Parkland where I had left...that hopefully meant my house would still have power and AC. ; I managed at last to get to my neighborhood, swim through the guard gate (ours opened as it should, but was unfortunately situated over a 1-foot-deep lake, rather than a road). ; While I was happy for the low profile sports car when the winds were trying to pick everything up...I now wished I had my high-profile SUVs again as the waters lapped at my front bumper. ; Fortunately, no flooding engines, and my home's power was on, so my garage opener worked. ; I pulled in with the rain horizontally whipping into the garage - I had to close the garage door with the remote before getting out of my car, because of the amount of rain falling IN my garage!
All of my digital clocks were blinking, so power had been out at some point...a fair number of leaves and branches were littering the backyard. ; But otherwise, all was OK. ; The storm lasted maybe another 20 minutes before moving off into the ocean. ; My drive home had taken 1 hour, 20 minutes...about double normal time. ; I cursory look at my car this morning revealed no hail dents or issues...other than some palm frond leaves shoved in my lower air intake. ; The local news revealed Boca Raton had winds of 61MPH, 3 inches of rain in about 30 minutes, and 1,100 lightning strikes, including one that blasted a county sheriff off his feet at an intersection where he was attempting to tend to an accident that occurred during the storm (as of this morning, he's OK...in the hospital being monitored).
Just a little south Florida storm story to share with you all! ; The forecast for the rest of the week looks just like yesterday's forecast. ;
This is Florida. ; South Florida to be specific. ; We have thunderstorms. ; Often. ; Driving in severe thunderstorms is really not a big deal for me, as I do it dozens of times a year, sometimes for weeks on end. ; I've got good rain vision, an AWD car, and can pretty much drive as well in wet as in dry. ; So when I mention that driving was a bit challenging yesterday...you can bank on it!
At around 5:30pm, I left work in Coral Springs FL, for my roughly 24 mile commute home to Boca Raton...my drive is pretty much ENE, though there's no direct diagonal route, so it's like stairs...North, East, North, East. ; Typically, it takes around 40 minutes in good weather, with typical rush hour traffic. ; When leaving my office, I noted the completely black sky to the west...very close...with a distinguishable funnel cloud and a ton of lightning. ; The funnel cloud was rotational with a small stem, but not extending downward in any way. ; No biggie - our severe thunderstorms often result in funnel clouds, but rarely in tornadoes.
I stopped off at a coworker's house to pick up a key - I'll be feeding her cat for her while she's gone next week, since her house is on my way home. ; She lives in Parkland...which much like the name implies is a very tree-covered neighborhood just to the north of Coral Springs. ; The storm caught up while I was at her house, with the rain coming down in barrels and winds picking up pretty heavily. ; Again...no biggie. ; This is normal late afternoon stuff for us in the summer. ; I lunged out to my car in the heavy rain and jumped inside...this rain was intense! ; And now the lightning seemed to be falling much more frequently and close...every 1 to 2 seconds was a bright strike to the ground, with the thunder following just about the time you were blinking the burned image off your retina. ; I drove down to the end of her street - about 100 yards - when the skies started lighting up with a crazy purplish blue flashing. ; Many of these flashes were blazing in between the lightning strikes - familiar with these from hurricane experience, I knew power transformers were arc-ing which meant lightning struck one or a line was impacted by a branch. ; No biggie. ; Well, actually, small biggie - her neighborhood has electric gates for entry/exit, and the power was now out - so they didn't open for me when I tried to leave. ; It was a small biggie, because my car was low enough and the gap big enough between the two gates that I could squeeze through them with my roofrails touching. ; Freedom!
Hitting the main road, I turned north to head out to my normal route home...realizing this was definitely some of the hardest rain I'd ever seen - I had trouble making out more than 10 feet of road in front of me, and the wipers were on high, flapping hard enough to look like they wanted the car to fly. ; The powerline flashes continued, now much closer as I noticed it was the poles lining the road I was on...several arc-ed out huge sparks just feet from my car as I drove past. ; I didn't drive far though, as I came upon a 70-foot Australian pine tree that had fallen across the road, taking the powerlines with it. ; Several of the now-disconnected lines were dancing in the street with sparklers at their tips...time to back up! ; Boy, were the winds really picking up now! ; My low-profile car was bouncing back and forth, and large tree branches nearly the size of my car were rolling across the road like twigs. ; Had to be running 60MPH or more. ; Turned around and driving south to the next cross street so I could head home, I was quickly blocked by another pine tree falling down across the road...but this one luckily took one bounce, then did a cartwheel and bounced right over the road to the other side. ; A few of the loosened power poles that were pulled by the tree threatened to come down on the road too - but they were kind enough to lift themselves out of the ground and fly horizontally across the road to the other side...leaving my path clear.
Hold on...back up a second. ; The tree CARTWHEELED?! ; The power poles lifted UP and FLEW?! ; Yes, I confirmed to myself...that is what I was seeing.
OK, so I'm driving in the tornado. ; (!!) ; Apparently, that friendly funnel cloud I noticed earlier had managed to huff and puff and turn itself into probably a minor EF1 tornado...or even the beginnings of one that just started to ruffle things up but didn't quite form all the way. ; I'd never quite had that before. ; With huge winds whipping across the road, I was quite happy to have a lower profile car designed for Autobahn speeds, rather than my old high profile SUVs I used to have. ; I made it out to the major road and proceeded east as quickly as I could make with that visibility (about 10MPH). ; Roads were now 3-4 inches of standing water, with branches and debris everywhere. ; At the main intersection (8-lanes by 6-lanes), the power was out, and though I really couldn't see much past my hood now, I did notice that hundreds of cars in commuter traffic were not moving at all - completely parked in their lanes with emergency lights on. ; What should have been challenging, crossing an 8-lane road at rush hour with no traffic signals, was actually quite easy...noone else was moving but me.
All the while, the winds were still running up in tropical-storm force or better. ; Big chunks of trees were all over the roads, as well as petrified drivers stopped in their places, reducing driving to a 5MPH slalom course. ; Lightning was striking the ground, prominently, every 1 to 2 seconds - I saw the top of a drug store, a tree, and a traffic signal pole all get struck within 100 feet of me. ; I was hoping to continue moving east, to get out of the way of this funnel cloud, which it seemed was moving more to the Northeast. ; This was somewhat unfortunate, as that is my direction home, and it was the direction this storm was travelling too. ; About this time, a cloying metal clanking noise...more of a pinging noise, started up. ; First it was infrequent, but then picked up into a cacaphony. ; Tink tink tink clang tink clang. ; Ah yes, our friend Hail! ; Hard to imagine the very concept of balls of ice falling out of the sky in the tropics in the summer when temps were running in the high 90s...but balls of ice they were, and falling they were. ; Fortunately, they were between pea-sized and dime-sized...small enough that sheetmetal damage was unlikely. ; But the last thing I needed in this apocalyptic hellfire-and-damnation storm was another weather extremity.
The easterly drive was accompanied the entire way by lightning strikes walloping the ground and everything on it, winds running comfortably in the 50MPH range, rain coming down at Niagara-falls rate, and the receding hail which fortunately only lasted about 5 minutes. ; Turning north, I reintersected the storm's intense heart...hoping the funnel cloud had pulled back its stem at least, and stopped trying to vaccuum up the landscape. ; The intensity picked up from 8 back to 9 again, and the debris fields started to show up as I entered my town of Boca Raton. ; The final 4 miles to my house was again a slalom course, with large branches, palm fronds, and a few toppled trees all littering the roadway, and a 6-lane thoroughfare of rush hour traffic was reduced to a 5MPH conga-line of single file cars weaving their way through all three lanes like rats in a maze, trying to find a way through the debris. ; Mother nature, not liking to play fair, was still rearranging the maze too - dropping new branches, and moving others with her huge winds. ; I was happy to at least notice power was on in my town - a step up on Parkland where I had left...that hopefully meant my house would still have power and AC. ; I managed at last to get to my neighborhood, swim through the guard gate (ours opened as it should, but was unfortunately situated over a 1-foot-deep lake, rather than a road). ; While I was happy for the low profile sports car when the winds were trying to pick everything up...I now wished I had my high-profile SUVs again as the waters lapped at my front bumper. ; Fortunately, no flooding engines, and my home's power was on, so my garage opener worked. ; I pulled in with the rain horizontally whipping into the garage - I had to close the garage door with the remote before getting out of my car, because of the amount of rain falling IN my garage!
All of my digital clocks were blinking, so power had been out at some point...a fair number of leaves and branches were littering the backyard. ; But otherwise, all was OK. ; The storm lasted maybe another 20 minutes before moving off into the ocean. ; My drive home had taken 1 hour, 20 minutes...about double normal time. ; I cursory look at my car this morning revealed no hail dents or issues...other than some palm frond leaves shoved in my lower air intake. ; The local news revealed Boca Raton had winds of 61MPH, 3 inches of rain in about 30 minutes, and 1,100 lightning strikes, including one that blasted a county sheriff off his feet at an intersection where he was attempting to tend to an accident that occurred during the storm (as of this morning, he's OK...in the hospital being monitored).
Just a little south Florida storm story to share with you all! ; The forecast for the rest of the week looks just like yesterday's forecast. ;
