It would be just my luck, that on the day of the biggest weather story in my area of the year, I’d be out of town. I was in Sacramento on an unexpected trip to find an important and now hard to get electronic part (thanks to it being made in Japan, and now scarce due to earthquake and Tsunami related supply chain issues) when all this happened, and the best I could muster was cell phone reports to my radio station while driving and taking time out to get radar images on my cell phone. KCRA-TV had their copter up, and here is some footage of what looks to be an F1 tornado in Butte County, CA near Durham, just south of Chico.
Of course compared to what was going in in the Midwest Mississippi and Ohio valleys today, this was minor. To add to the craziness, on my way back I got word my home security system had been tripped by an internal motion sensor alarm and police were at my home.
We think it was a malfunction, possibly lightning related, but can’t be sure what actually tripped the alarm.
Glad this day is over.
Anthony,
Thanks for all the great posts. I was actually a little worried when I heard the warning but didn’t see a post on it that the garage might have been yours and WUWT went up with Harold Camping. Glad to hear everyone is OK there.
APE
Anthony,
The unexpected happened and knocked on Chico’s back door.
My son is concerned that this could happen in Sacramento. This is a weather event that we normally see in the foothills, yes? Couldn’t such a thunderstorm and tornado event happen in and around Sacramento?
Oh so long ago when I was a kid, about the late 1960’s, there was a dinky little tornado outside of town (a bit south of Durham…). There was an old barn (and I mean very old, some boards missing and leaning like an old drunk) that was knocked down by the tornado.
So it made the nightly news.
It was observed, and was a tornado, but the “damage” was pathetic…
Looks like the area is still able to “pop a dinky one”… At least during “cold phase” of the PDO cycle…
There’s a famous and really rather pleasent song by a NZ band called Crowded House called…’Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you.’ May I suggest it as the WUWT Anthem?
Well of course it’s your own fault. As the number one denialist website, you are obviously responsible for the rise in CO2, since CO2 is known to cause catastrophic melting, it has obviously softened the earth’s crust. Which clearly was directly responsible for the Japanese earthquake – which caused your visit to find find japanese parts.
So, next time you decide to set up the world’s premier denialist website, remember that it could cause something as catastrophic as not being in your town to report “yet more proof of global warming”.
(do I need to say sarc off?)
Someone observed that tornadoes tend to prefer level ground. What’s the terrain like thereabouts?
Scottish Sceptic says:
May 26, 2011 at 12:35 am …
OMG – Sarc off is overly polite
What an idiot!!
Please excuse me if I misinterpreted your sarc statement. I’m not sure what is relevant at this point.
Scottish Sceptic says: May 26, 2011 at 12:35 am
“…CO2 … has obviously softened the earth’s crust. Which clearly was directly responsible for the Japanese earthquake”
Oh I haven’t been aware of that clear, trivial, and awful causality. Thanks for your wisdom.
Could just be me… but the picture isn’t showing up. Maybe your day still isn’t over? =)
Sorry about the tornado but at least your police responded. Here in the UK they do net respond to any alarms. In fact you could get a noise abatement order to stop the noise. Bit of a worry if you happen to be away on holiday at the time.
Hope the weather improves.
Did any wind farms get flattened?
Policyguy says: May 26, 2011 at 1:35 am
“Please excuse me if I misinterpreted your sarc statement. I’m not sure what is relevant at this point.”
Oh, sorry, I forgot US spelling should I have written “Sark off”?
[Warning this is intended to be a gentle jibe at the variation between US and UK culture suggesting something that is plainly ridiculous, with the intention by going over the top to highlight just how ridiculous it is to have suggested it … inviting the reader (after a brief moment of uncertainty as to the intention) to laugh with the writer in the knowledge that both share the joke.]
[Reply] Sarcasm and irony in a single comment? A recipe for anglo-american confustification! RT-mod
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/04/28/us/tornado-deaths.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/25/us/joplin-aerial.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1
@ur momisugly charles nelson –
Wouldn’t that be a better anthem for, say, Al Gore?
This reminds of the old joke, “how is a tornado like a divorce in Arkansas?”
A: Somebody’s gonna lose a trailer! (or a garage, in this case)
But I think overall that this, at least, is something that Californians don’t need to spend much time worrying about. Earthquakes, maybe. Bankruptcy, probably. 40,000 felons let loose on the streets because the judges say so, Definitely. But tornadoes, naaah.
I’m out of my Ohio basement after a bit of concern. Looks like your neighborhood got a bit of what we dodged last night. We are such motes of dust in the face of nature’s force.
Scottish Sceptic says:
May 26, 2011 at 3:24 am
>Oh, sorry, I forgot US spelling should I have written “Sark off”?
No no, we use sarcasm over here too, but off still implies on/off.
Better to use /sarc, a degenerate form derived from HTML’s <command>stuff affected by the command</command>. So /sarc implies the preceding stuff was sarcastic. People never think of adding a sarc at the beginning, and that would spoil the effect anyway.
“Sarc off” could imply there’s no sarcasm in the stuff, which seemed an unlikely interpretation.
Hmm, that makes me think about “stuff it,” but that’s a whole different colloquialism.
I have a similar joke. “What do rednecks and tornadoes have in common? They are both attracted to trailer parks.”
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/04/28/us/tornado-deaths.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23
“At least 122 people were killed in a tornado outbreak on May 22, bringing the year’s total to nearly 500 and making it the deadliest year since 1953, when 519 people were killed.”
Very close to the 60 year MDO climate cycle. All the while CO2 has been increasing.
The folks Hansen should be taking to court are the climate scientists that conspired to subvert peer review to hide alternative views of climate change. Everything else in nature moves in clycles. Why not climate? Governments should have been prepared for a return to the cold of 60 years ago. Instead they were seduced by the hype over ever increasing CO2 leading to ever increase temperature and the prospect of ever increasing taxes.
Scottish Sceptic says:
May 26, 2011 at 3:24 am
Don’t worry – I got the sarcasm.
By the way, do they say “Beam me up, Scotty.” in Scotland? :^)
I’m glad the last week is over. With that front hanging out, we were under threat of severe weather for most of the last week.
I’m glad that the last two months are over and we’re about to go into summer heat and humidity. Here in Arkansas, we’ve been under the gun way more than normal, and spent more time in the storm shelter than any other year — yes, there are people in Arkansas who don’t live in trailers.
Frank K. says: May 26, 2011 at 5:49 am
Don’t worry – I got the sarcasm.
By the way, do they say “Beam me up, Scotty.” in Scotland? :^)
No we say “Up US”.
Oh dear … I’m going to have to explain this. First you have to read this as Us = YOUs.
Next you have to know the local Glasgow dialect where the plural of “you” is “yous”. So e.g. one might say: “where are yous going”.
Do have the phrase: “Up yours” … just in case not I’ll avoid any confusion by explaining this is a shortened form of the phrase meaning “stick it up some place where no PV will produce electricity”.
oops … and I should have said that “Up yours” is a traditional greeting between Scotsmen. …. no! No! I can just imagine it now … some American greets a Glaswegian with “Up yours” up to receive a Glasgow kiss …. but it is a mild rebuke (amongst friends) to someone trying to suggest something that is unbelievable.