Oh, What The Heck? Let's Do Storm Videos Two Days In A Row

Yesterday, I posted videos of weekend storms, but didn't get to all of the ones I saw online.

I do call these videos "weather porn," as weather geeks do get a rise out of these videos. Since we're now somewhat in the summer weather doldrums, let's do two video days in a row.

So here we go. The first one involves the massive, severe thunderstorm that hit Dallas on June 9. (As noted yesterday, a second huge, tornadic thunderstorm hit Dallas-Fort Worth again on Sunday.)

This video involves the storm that knocked a construction crane onto an apartment complex, killing one person and injuring several others. The video here is a compilation of storm scenes on June 9 put together by television station WFAA. Talk about rough weather!



The next one shows security camera footage from several angles as a relatively small German tornado damages a house. In the middle of the clip, we see a man who clearly regrets going outside to secure his garage door:



Here's a really cool waterspout taken at close range recently just off shore of Marathon, in the Florida Keys:


Finally, you don't want this kind of turbulence about an airline flight.

This plane over Europe headed toward Basel, Switzerlahd recently encountered extreme turbulence, sending a flight attendant into the ceiling and sending a beverage cart flying. Ten people were taken to hospitals when the plane landed.

The flight attendent is reportedly not seriously injured. Watch:

Germany Hailstorm Causes Serious Damage

Chaos in Germany: Cracked windshields from hail
and cars stranded in flash flooding near Munich.
Photo via Twitter, @MegabrainTV 

Here in the United States, we've hit a relative, temporary lull in severe thunderstorm activity after a very busy May.

Things look like they might pick up again in the middle of the country. We'll have to see about that. '

Meanwhile, as you can see in the dramatic videos at the bottom of this post, extreme hailstorms hit parts of Germany on Monday, especially around Munich and other areas of Bavaria.

The hail was as big as tennis balls. Such storms hitting a populated area like Munich probably caused tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Countless cars had cracked and broken windows, as did houses and buildings. Roofing and siding also took a serious hit.

Several people were injured, but no deaths were reported in the Monday storms.

New storms struck eastern Germany Tuesday, with another round of large damaging hail, this time around Saxony and Brandenburg. Potsdam, Germany reported severe flash flooding and wind damage .
The weather is forecast to remain unsettled around Munich and other areas of Germany for the next few days, with more thunderstorms possible Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, according to The Weather Channel.

Some videos:

Here's a compilation video of some of the hailstorms around Munich on Monday:



Here's one of many motorists in Germany losing a windshield

It's Not Just the United States Lately: Germany Was Hit By A Tornado, Too

Damage from a strong tornado in western Germany this week. 

While that big mega storm in the middle of the country was, among other things, spinning off a few tornadoes from New Mexico to Michigan, another twister caused a lot of damage in Germany.

The tornado hit the town of Roetgen in western Germany, damaging more than 30 houses and injuring five people, reported Deutsche Welle.

At least two houses had their second floors blown away, which is consistent with an EF-2 or possibly even an EF-3 tornado. (Tornadoes are judged on a zero to 5 EF scale. EF-0's have winds of 65-85 mph. An EF-2 would have winds of 111 to 135 mph.

Video of the tornado is at the bottom of this post.

Tornadoes are relatively common in Germany, though obviously not like they are in the United States. Germany had 17 tornadoes in 2018, though most tornadoes aren't as bad as the one that hit this week.

Here's a video of the tornado and its aftermath. Make sure the sound is on, you can really hear the twister roar:

Yes, It Snowed Here, But If You REALLY Like Snow....

There seems to be a bit of snow on the ground at the moment in
the Austrian Alps. Photo via Twitter by Pipp Ionguere/La Meteo

Snow lovers here in Vermont are having a so-so winter so far. The season got off to a bang, but in December snowfall was lacking.

Things have picked up somewhat now in January, and now there's a decent, but not spectacular snow cover in most places in the Green Mountain State.

Some areas along the western slopes of the Green Mountains have picked up as much as 18 inches of snow in the past couple of days.

However, if you like ridiculous amounts of snow, though, head to Europe.  It's absolutely crazy.

Wild amounts of snow- feet of it in some places -  have fallen there in the past couple of weeks, and it does look pretty amazing. Even wilder, several more feet of snow might come down there in the coming days.

There's videos at the bottom of this post.

It looks amazing, especially in the Alps, but as you might imagine, three to seven or more feet of snow is dangerous, especially if it all comes within a week or so.

At least 17 people have died in the snow and storms in and near Austria, and hundreds of people were stranded. One Austrian ski resort reported seven feet of new snow in just seven days. 

Try to shovel that out!

Some of the dead were avalanche victims. Another person was killed when heavy snow broke branches. The snow and branches fell on a man, killing him.

About 600 people were stranded in an Austrian village when the area became cut off due to snow-blocked roads. A few hundred other people were trapped on a train for hours because a snow-laen tree fell onto tracks near Kitzbuehel, Austria, The Weather Channel reported.

The snow created the highest avalanche danger since at least 1999, authorities said. An additional four feet of snow might fall in the mountains during the rest of this week, forecasters said.

The snow extended pretty far south. It snarled traffic in the higher elevations of Lebanon this week. Athens, Greece was also pretty much shut down by the snow.

Here's a BBC report of the situation in Austria:



Here's another pretty wild news report:

Tropical Depression Strikes Indiana Of All Places, Bad Flooding Elsewhere

Tropical Depression Alberto still has a well defined tropical-like
circulation over Indiana on Wednesday. 

This morning, former subtropical Storm Alberto was still a tropical depression - in Indiana of all places.

Alberto has held together remarkably well as a tropical system. Usually, they transition pretty quickly to non-tropical storm systems or disturbances soon after moving inland.

Alberto will indeed become just a regular old inland weather system later today, but it's survivability into Indiana is pretty incredible.

Satellite photos from this morning show a well defined pinwheel Tropical Depression Alberto centered not far from Terre Haute, Indiana.

This is a big example of what's known as the "brown ocean."  The tropical disturbance can hold together becuase there is no influence from an upper level low that would disrupt the circulation. Also, there was plenty of low level and moisture from the ground to support the tropical system.

Remember, tropical systems depend on warm water to maintain their strength and integrity. When they go inland, that source of nutrition for tropical systems ends. Usually. Except in cases like this when there's nothing to disrupt them and there's plenty of atmospheric moisture to work with.

North Carolina Department of Transportation truck swept into a river
Tuesday. The two workers in the truck were rescued. 

While the actual circulation of Alberto is relatively small, it drew huge quantities of tropical, wet air into parts of the nation, causing or at least greatly contributing to some pretty horrible flash floods in some locations.

Western North Carolina was especially hard hit, with plenty of evacuations, water rescues, road closures and property damage.

Even the famed Biltmore Estate in Asheville was affected: The main entrance to the mansion and tourist attraction was blocked by floodwaters.

Ashville has had its wettest May on record.

Interstate 40 in McDowell County, North Carolina was closed due to landslides and flooding. Two North Carolina state highway workers had to be rescued from the flooding.

A flash flood emergency was also declared in parts of Alabama as well. Many roads are closed and people had to be rescued from at least one flooded home.

GERMANY FLOOD, TOO

Flash flooding seems to to be all the rage this week across much of the world. We had the Ellicott City, Maryland disaster on Sunday. Other flash floods struck parts of the Rocky Mountains. Areas of Great Britaina and particularly Germany have also been slammed by these floods.

Roads and buildings flooded, roofs collapsed and people were rescued, especially around the city of Wuppertal, Germany.

Some videos:

Flooding in the Biltmore Village section of Asheville, North Carolina:



Flooding in Germany:

German Tornado Yields Scary Footage; Cleanup In U.S. Continues

A large tornado struck Germany this week

It's not only the northeastern United States that have been dealing with unusual severe storms and tornadoes lately.

A tornado touched down in western Germany this week, injuring two people, severely damaging several houses and causing other destruction. Tornadoes sometimes hit this part of Germany, but this one was more destructive than usual.

There's quite a video at the bottom of this post.

Here in the United States, seven tornadoes have been confirmed so far in New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and other towns were trashed by equally destructive straight line winds, sometimes up to 100 mph. Five people have also been confirmed dead.

Although there are no severe storms or tornadoes expected along the East Coast today, heavy rain is an increasing problem. Flood warnings and watches are up for parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. Several inches of rain are expected there over the next few days. That's falling on land saturated by other downpours over the past week or two there.

Back in Germany, a viral video shows the viewpoint of a motorist who stopped behind a truck as the tornado approached, and then got caught in the twister. I'm amazed the car and the truck stayed on the road, and the tree in the video generally stayed intact.  The second part of the video is a view from inside a house.

I think Germans should learn some tornado safety tips from the United States: Don't drive into tornadoes, and don't hang out near windows when a tornado comes through.

Here's that video:

Wild European Storm Has People, Objects Blowing Away In The Wind

People struggled with the winds in The Hague,
Netherlands this week as the worst storm in years swept through.

A severe storm battered much of Europe over the past couple of days, killing at least eight people amid hurricane-force wind gusts across the Netherlands, Germany and other nations in the region.

The storm was said to be the worst to strike Germany in 11 years. Train service was badly disrupted by trees falling on rail lines.

In the Netherlands, winds clocked as high as 90 mph sheared roofs from buildings, knocked over trucks on highways, pushed over stacks of containers at the port of Rotterdam and flung pedestrians across plazas in that city.

Insurers are already estimating about $110 million in damage in just the Netherlands from the storm.

Dramatic videos are below:

The first one is labeled "funny video" but I'm not sure it's funny that people were blown across this Netherlands plaza. (reports are the people weren't hurt, though.)



More storm footage:



Here's a German  news report of the storm. You likely don't understand German, but I'm sure you get the gist:



First half of this video shows a hair-raising plane landing during the storm at Dusseldorf's airport

More Random, Really Cool Weather Images

Satellite view taken Monday of most of New England
shrouded in snow cover.

In my continuing hunt for cool weather media, I'll share a few more finds from recent weather events that I think are really cool.

In any of the photos you see in this post, click on them to make them bigger and easier to see.

The first one is a real color satellite image taken amid clear skies this past, of New England, eastern New York and a bit of southern Quebec after that big snowstorm we got a little over a week ago.

In it, all but southeastern New England is encased in snow. The warm March sun had caused the thinner snow cover in and around Cape Cod to begin retreating northward.]

You can see the large dark spot on the northwestern edge of Vermont. That's the still open, ice-free water of Lake Champlain.

The snow also allows you to see the land features and land uses better. Notice much of the Champlain Valley and southeastern Quebec look whiter than other areas.

That's because there's more open fields in these locations. The spine of the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks are darker, because of all the trees and lack of open spaces.

A dense March 14 snow squall over Lake Michigan and Chicago

Smaller, frozen lakes also show up as bright white.

It's a pretty stunning post-snowstorm image, isn't it?

The next photo was taken March 14 from downtown Chicago.

Chicago can get lake effect snows off of Lake Michigan, especially if the wind is coming from the northeast, off the water.

The photo, taken from a high rise, shows the waters of Lake Michigan abruptly being hidden by a thick curtain of snow from a squall.

After going through January and February with no snow on the ground, winter finally hit Chicago in mid-March with a series of snowy and cold days.

Spring is returning to Chicago, however. The forecast high temperature on Friday there is 74 degrees.

Next, we turn to Hutchinson, Kansas, scene of widespread wild fires earlier this month. The winter in the central and southern Plains was dry, and that region has been subjected to repeated bouts of record warmth, super dry air and high winds all winter and early spring.

Aerial view of home near
Hutchinson, Kanasas spared
from a huge wildfire 

The result was the worst wildfires on record. Kansasans are calling the wildfires "our Katrina," referencing the 2005 hurricane calamity in New Orleans.

The wild fires earlier this month killed seven people and thousands of cattle caught in the fast moving flames. Many other cows were badly injured in the fires and ranchers had the heartbreaking task of taking out their rifles and shooting them to put the animals out of their severe misery and pain.

The photo in this post depicts one of the lucky ones. It shows a house that survived the wildfires near Hutchinson, Kansas, even as everything for miles around burned to a crisp

After a break, the wildfire threat has returned this week. Hundreds of Boulder, Colorado residents had to be evacuated due to a wildfire Sunday, which was fortunately contained.

Today, there's an extreme risk of dangerous wildfires in eastern New Mexico, the Texas panhandle and southeastern Colorado.

Let's hope they get some rain soon.

Also, here in the United States, we're ramping up into tornado season, too. There've already been some deadly outbreaks over the winter, so things are not off to a good start.

March 9 tornado in Germany 

Starting today, and continuing daily for the next week or so in different parts of the Plains, Midwest and South, there will be a threat of severe storms as we've entered a weather pattern that features such weather.

Of course, tornadoes don't only happen in the United States. They can happen almost anywhere. On March 9, there was a particularly picturesque tornado in, of all places, Wurzburg, Bavaria, Germany.

The tornado damaged the roofs of up to 80 homes. 

Tornadoes do take place from time to time in Germany and other parts of Europe. It's quite unusual to get one this far north in Europe this early in the season, however.

The tornado, as you can see in the photo, was really striking, lit up white by the late afternoon sun against dark clouds, with a rainbow crossing above it.

Elsewhere, a small tornado passed through the Brisbane, Australia airport, causing a scare but not causing much damage.

Here's the video, below. Note the tail end of the video is not that exciting, just a local weather report. But the tornado is cool:

Way, Way Too Close To A German, Russian Tornadoes

Believe it or not, this image from a video of
a recent Russian tornado was taken from a safer distance
than in the video in this post, below.  

Two videos emerged this week of tornadoes in Europe in which I think whoever was filming them got far, far too close to the action. It's a wonder they weren't hurt or killed.

In the German tornado, I don't know why this person was out on his patio with the tornado right at the edge of his yard, but there he was as a twister swept through part of Germany.

Luckily the tornado was on the relatively weak side, and only the very outer edges of it actually engulfed the guy who was filming but YIKES!!

Watch:



An even scarier video emerged from Russia in the past couple of days.

Last week, and EF-3 tornado struck, claiming at least two lives.  In this video, I'm afraid right at the beginning it sort of looks the tornado had already gone through and left wreckage. But watch as the tornado comes.

Again wayyyyyyy too close!  Don't try this at home kiddies!!

Here's the Russian storm: