New York Homes Turned Into Ice Castles

One of the houses at Hoover Beach in Hamburg, New York covered
with ice after large waves from Lake Erie sprayed the houses
with water amid subfreezing temperatures last week. 

Not all areas of western New York were hit by heavy lake effect snow squalls last week

Depending upon where the bands set up, you either measured the snow in feet, or you got out a broom and swept away a dusting of it.

The town of Hamburg, New York, right on the shores of Lake Erie, only managed about six inches of new snow.

Still,  Lake Erie is oddly unfrozen for this time of year.  Which is why those heavy lake effect snows happen. The unfrozen Lake Erie also created another problem besides blizzards.  

For a couple days last week the winds absolutely screamed from the west off the lakes. This generated some awfully big waves on those  lakes. Plus, lake levels are much above normal, so the water is already closer than it usually is to lakeshore homes.

In Hamburg, New York, Lake Erie waves crashing onto the shore created some odd ice castles. At least three homes were encased in thick ice from waves hitting the shore, causing spray to fly through the  air in the gale and onto the houses.

During the storm, occupants had to basically chisel their way out of at least one of the homes.  Ed Mis, the owner of one of the houses, told television station WGRZ that the front of his house is encased in ice one to three feet thick.  One side of a neighbor's house is buried in ice almost to the roof.

It's unclear how badly damaged the houses are. It could be minor, who knows?  Homeowners will need to wait for the ice to melt before figuring that out.  Daytime temperatures in the area are forecast to be in the 40s for much of this week, so maybe at least some of the ice will come off the structures.

Here's a video of what it looked like:

Scary: Houses Flying In Powerful Tornadoes

That large piece of debris on the right side
of this still from the Pilger, Nebraska tornado
is apparently a house.  

Remember that double tornado that hit and trashed the little town of Pilger, Nebraska earlier this month?  

When I saw videos of the tornado, I was struck by a huge piece of debris the tornado spat out as it tore through the town.

Analysis of the video shows that piece of debris was an entire house, or at least most of one.  

I wasn't able to confirm from any sources whether anyone was in the house when it sailed through the air.

There are pictures of a damaged house off its foundation, but I have doubts if it's the one that flew through the air. I'd think it would have disintegrated when it hit the ground.

This house in Bertram, Texas flew 100 feet through the
air during a tornado earlier this month.
The family inside suffered minor injuries.  

However, there was another recent, better documented case of a tornado that sent an occupied house flying.

 In early June, a house in Bertram, Texas flew 100 feet through the air during a tornado and landed 100 feet from its original location.

A family was inside, but the house was well constructed and ended up largely intact when the tornado ended. The family survived with minor injuries.

All this sounds like something out of the Wizard of Oz.

In a sense, the owners of these houses were lucky. Usually, homes disintegrate in a severe tornado, scattering possessions far and wide. The owners of these two homes were able to retrieve some of their belongings from the destroyed homes.

Here's what typically happens to a house in a strong tornado, in a surveillance video taken from a gas station during an Illinois tornado last November. (And it's amazing the gas station remained mostly intact)



Additionally, here's another video of the double tornado earlier this month in Nebraska. This one was not taken by a storm chaser, but a local resident. In some ways it's better than a storm chaser video. No yelling, no shaky cameras or blurry images of trying to catch up with a twister in a car.

This one is just a guy watching two terrifying tornadoes roar past him.