Crap Weather

[Moo2K4]

So after the worst winter I've ever experienced, the trend is continuing to the Summer time. I haven't seen weather like this....well ever. It's hard to remember the last time that we weren't projected to have some storming, it's ridiculous. There's so much flooding right now that it's just blowing my mind. Palo, a small city near me, is currently being evacuated for flooding. Parts of Cedar Rapids and Waterloo are being evacuated because of that as well. It's crazy.

Aside from flooding, tornadoes are also rearing their ugly head as well. I got the joy of spending about half an hour of my Sunday night chilling in my bathroom because there were funnel clouds spotted about 8 miles north of me. Parkersburg was also COMPLETELY destroyed about a week and a half ago by a massive F5 tornado. The thing was on the ground for over an hour, which is just insane.

To say the least, I'm sick of this. We Iowans just can't seem to get a break. After a brutal winter, we're having just shit weather again. We're looking at the worst flooding since the massive flood of 1993 and we've had plenty of tornadoes to boot. Why, why can't we just have normal weather? It's insane.

 

[bbwchingy0007]

Come to England. It's boiling.

 

[Moo2K4]

I'd rather have hot weather than this. I usually complain in the summer because it's 95deg and humid as hell. Well, I have hardly seen the sun now in the last week and a half.

 

[bbwchingy0007]

By boiling, I mean like 25C which is like 77F so it's not THAT hot, but its that really nice hot, lol.

 

[Moo2K4]

Wow, you're complaining because of that?! I'd love for that to be our consistent temps. Basically, if we're not raining, we're 85+ and humid...which makes it feel closer to 90+.

 

[CelticKing]

We had 3 straight days of 95+ here in Mass. and yesterday at night we had thunderstorms, but thank god they moved quickly to the ocean. lol

 

[Dumpy]

Bad weather is no fun, but it gives you something to talk about.

 

[Moo2K4]

This isn't just bad weather, it's terrible. We've had to evacuate some smaller towns and than a decent chunk of more than a few cities because of ridiculous flooding. Beyond that, an F5 Tornado destroyed a town just a couple weeks ago, leaving no house or building standing. Personally, I'd rather have nothing to talk about than to talk about this piss poor weather. Is anyone else experiencing anything like this?

 

[Dumpy]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Moo2K4 @ Jun 11 2008, 12:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>This isn't just bad weather, it's terrible. We've had to evacuate some smaller towns and than a decent chunk of more than a few cities because of ridiculous flooding. Beyond that, an F5 Tornado destroyed a town just a couple weeks ago, leaving no house or building standing. Personally, I'd rather have nothing to talk about than to talk about this piss poor weather. Is anyone else experiencing anything like this?</div>

It's really hot where I am, and a rainstorm nearly ruined a beach party over the weekend. Tragic!

tornados, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes are nothing to laugh at. Nor are blizzards or wildfires. Good luck.

 

[cpawfan]

So Moo, what is your plan for getting the hell out of Iowa?

 

[Moo2K4]

I have no idea.

On an aside, this is just getting worse and worse. We're in a flood warning til NEXT FUCKING THURSDAY. The main transit highway in my area, I-380, is now closed, which is going to be an absolute disaster. Basically all of the downtown area of Cedar Rapids, which is close to my area of living, is completely flooded now. It's insane. And it's great, cause we're getting no fucking breaks either. It just keeps fucking raining and raining. I've never, ever seen anything like this, never.

 

[Moo2K4]

In case anyone cares (which I'm assuming that, since you're all humans, you do), here's a link to a bunch of pictures and articles, so you can know what I'm currently going through.

Iowa Flood of 2008

 

[huevonkiller]

Moo you need to move to some tropical place like Miami. Our weather is awesome, and if you don't live close to the shore you'll be just fine during a hurricane. We don't get any tornadoes, snow, cold weather for long periods (even in winter), or hail.

 

[Dumpy]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ Jun 12 2008, 01:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Moo you need to move to some tropical place like Miami. Our weather is awesome, and if you don't live close to the shore you'll be just fine during a hurricane. We don't get any tornadoes, snow, cold weather for long periods (even in winter), or hail.</div>

Miami sucks! Tampa Bay has less humidity and fewer hurricanes--not to mention superior beaches. And our baseball team is better!

 

[huevonkiller]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dumpy @ Jun 12 2008, 01:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ Jun 12 2008, 01:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Moo you need to move to some tropical place like Miami. Our weather is awesome, and if you don't live close to the shore you'll be just fine during a hurricane. We don't get any tornadoes, snow, cold weather for long periods (even in winter), or hail.</div>

Miami sucks! Tampa Bay has less humidity and fewer tornadoes--not to mention superior beaches. And our baseball team is better!
</div>
I'd rather live in Broward or Kendall. I also found the girls more attractive over here...

Better beaches? How so? Well I also said a tropical place "like" Miami, so many places in Florida works.

Miami doesn't have any tornadoes at all really... Not "fewer".

I would agree that a Caucasian might find it more comfortable to live in Tampa though, since they might not want to learn Spanish and such. Those are some of the comments I hear, of course this is not a problem for me since I am Hispanic.

 

[Moo2K4]

Believe me, I'd love to move elsewhere, especially now. Hell, I do have full intentions on likely moving to the west coast within in the next few years once I'm done with college. It's just highly unfortunate that I'm here right now, cause this is just fucking brutal. I'm just thankful I live nowhere near a body of water right now.

 

[M Two One]

I know how you feel Moo, same type of crap weather here in IL. Tornado watch again in both states at the moment and the worst flooding in 15 years is just getting worse by the day. It doesn't help that tomorrow is bringing a cold front our way. This can only mean more tornadoes and worsening the flooding in your state and along the lake front from Wisconsin into Illinois.

Did you read about that scout camp in Iowa that was demolished by a tornado last night? Four people are dead, likely all kids and around 40 injured. Did you see my post about the tornado that just missed my house last week?!

Check these videos - Just a few minutes drive from my house.

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This last video shows a few of the five tornadoes that touched down in the area last week on June 7, one of which was a half-mile wide. Thankfully no one was killed, but they caused plenty of damage when they crossed into the Chicago south suburbs. Most of the footage in the video below is actually 10 to 30 minutes to the south just before the system hit my neighborhood.

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[Moo2K4]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (M Two One @ Jun 12 2008, 02:21 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I know how you feel Moo, same type of crap weather here in IL. Tornado watch again in both states at the moment and the worst flooding in 15 years is just getting worse by the day. It doesn't help that tomorrow is bringing a cold front our way. This can only mean more tornadoes and worsening the flooding in your state and along the lake front from Wisconsin into Illinois.

Did you read about that scout camp in Iowa that was demolished by a tornado last night? Four people are dead, likely all kids and around 40 injured. Did you see my post about the tornado that just missed my house last week?!

Check these videos - Just a few minutes drive from my house.



This last video shows a few of the five tornadoes that touched down in the area last week on June 7, one of which was a half-mile wide. Thankfully no one was killed, but they caused plenty of damage when they crossed into the Chicago south suburbs. Most of the footage in the video below is actually 10 to 30 minutes to the south just before the system hit my neighborhood.</div>
Yea, I heard about the scout camp. This is just nuts. I guess, it's really hard to comprehend exactly what's happening right now. I never, in my life, thought I'd see something like this. It's just nuts. And it's continuing to get worse out here to M. Thankfully, where I'm at, the flooding is supposed to crest tomorrow, and it'll be about 25 feet or so. Iowa City isn't going to crest for another four or five days, and it's going to end up cresting at about 33 feet. Waterloo crested earlier this week, though I don't remember what it crested at. To put this in perspective, in 1993, our last bad flood, can't even compare to what we're seeing. Almost all the major crest levels are higher - Iowa City is going to destroy the record for there. In 1993, it crested at just over 28 feet, and as I mentioned, it's going to crest at at least 33 feet right now.

And this is just part of it. We've been pummeled with tornadoes and severe thunderstorms all summer too. Parkersburg was demolished, that boyscout camp got hit, part of New Hartford got destroyed, and that's just what's been reported. I'm sure other things have happened, I just haven't seen it.

Did I mention that we're also in a flood warning for another week, til June 19th. It's just ridiculous. I wouldn't go to say that I'm scared, but this surely is the most frightening weather I have EVER experienced.

 

[Moo2K4]

One last thing I forgot to mention, we're having our "500 Year Flood" right now. Just to let you know how rare and unlikely this is, there is about a 0.2% chance of getting a flood like this.

 

[Moo2K4]

And it just keeps getting worse. The Cedar River is now at 26ft in Cedar Rapids and could crest at 28ft, which is nearly 4ft higher than originally expected. Iowa City is getting worse too, with the crest potentially reaching 38ft, 5ft higher than initially expected. To make it worse, the Linn County jail is also apparently on fire, despite partially submerged in water. This weather, for lack of better words, is just fucking nuts.

 

[Денг Гордон]

This weather has been ridiculous. My count is 4 days of tornadoes this week, and 3 days of flooding. Another flood warning tonight...

If Al Gore doesn't accept Obama's VP spot as environmental czar, it is official, Al Gore is a greedy pussy pig.

 

[Moo2K4]

Where are you BG7? Are you seeing record flooding like we are here in Iowa?

 

[Denny Crane]

Talk about ridiculous! It rained here for about 15 minutes one day last week and I don't remember that last time it rained before that. And it's only broken 100 degrees a few times this year, which is downright amazing. Can't stand all this cold!

 

[Денг Гордон]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Moo2K4 @ Jun 12 2008, 09:23 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Where are you BG7? Are you seeing record flooding like we are here in Iowa?</div>

Wisconsin. Where I live, it doesn't seem that bad, but I also live away from the river and lake, in a suburban/rural in between area.. A few roads were flooded, but that's it from what I saw. But I haven't been downtown (by where the river is) recently. Although 31 counties here are in a "state of emergency", and there is record flooding in other parts of the state.

Here are some videos from it.

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Here is my city:

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It looks like only the park got flooded, and a little spillage into the streets nearby. The park is basically a bowl, so that is why the water all got trapped there, which is pretty good in the long run I guess. The area where I go running, there might be flooding over there...I can't remember if that river to the right was always there or not.

Here's a video of one of our tornadoes from this past week. Not as bad as the one in Illinois though.

I think we have a flood warning out right now that is active until 1 AM.

 

[tim]

I'm going through similar stuff in Minnesota. Tough times. More tornado warnings today. Geez.

 

[Moo2K4]

So, more updates, oh boy. The storming is finally subsiding, finally. It looks like we might get a break for a day or two as well, but it's gonna rain again on Saturday. Thankfully, the river in Cedar Rapids is supposed to crest Friday morning at some point. However, it's way higher than the 24ft that was initially predicted. It's going to crest at about 33ft, and right now, it's at about 29.5ft. Totally nuts. Iowa City is going to be cresting sometime next week, I believe Tuesday. They've evacuated half the city, with more to come in all likelihood. They're at like, 24+ft last I knew, with cresting supposed to be at 33ft but could get as high as 38ft.

Speaking of evacuations, Palo has been 100% evacuated, a huge amount of Cedar Rapids has been evacuated, a huge amount of Iowa City has been evacuated, they've evacuated a lot of Waterloo, though they're going to be able to return here soon, Cresco is having voluntary evacuations, though if the levee breaks there it'll be mandatory - and these are just the ones that are in my general area. This is really excluding all of western Iowa.

Also, from my understanding, 80 of 99 counties in Iowa have been declared disaster sites because of either this flood or earlier weather related disasters. I believe FEMA is coming to Cedar Rapids on Friday to get it declared a national disaster site, that way that asshole in office can give us some financial help, because it's going to take a lot to repair the city. I've heard talks about bulldozing the downtown area of Cedar Rapids and starting over, which would be just horrific.

To add insult to injury, they've also had to evacuate a freaking hospital. Mercy Hospital is getting evacuated as I post this. They're moving a lot of patients to St. Lukes, which I personally think would be more affected by this, but I could be wrong. As it is, that hospital is currently running on a generator and is only going to be able to go for about 6 or 7 days before it runs out.

Also, Cedar Rapids is down to 25% of water capacity, so you basically can't do laundry, can't do dishes, can't shower, nothing. They're asking that you use it only for drinking purposes, which is crazy.

To say this least, this has been an absolute disaster. I've never seen anything like this, and it's only getting worse.

 

[huevonkiller]

Man I'm praying for you people up there.

 

[CelticKing]

Thats too bad man, hopefully things start getting better in a few days. Just hang on and keep your spirit up.

 

[Moo2K4]

Dude, it's so difficult to keep your spirits up in something like this. I know we as a state will make it through this, but it's just rough. It has yet to get better, it just keeps getting worse and worse. And even when the flooding itself is over, it could take months for all the water to subside, and possibly years for everything back to semi-normality. It really just blows my mind to see this happening, it really does. If any of you guys have a chance, take a look at the link I put on the first page and look at some of the pictures and vids. While words can paint a decent picture, a picture or video can do a lot more.

 

[M Two One]

Moo, I don't know if you actually read my post to you before, but there is a cold front brewing tonight that will spark mid-western storms for the next couple of days. No good all around for both of us. Keep safe and patient. Summer is around the corner and that means heat and humidity, but not so many horrid weather disasters.