Hurricane Chaser's Melissa Video Is Horrifying, Heartstopping, Sad And A Must-Watch

A still from Josh Morgerman's video of Category 5 
Hurricane Melissa violently dismantling 
western Jamaica. 

Josh Morgerman, known all over social media as icyclone, has chased down dozens of powerful hurricanes and typhoons worldwide. 

He willingly endures extreme winds and rains, interrupted only by the sudden calm of hurricane eyes. 

Of course Morgerman was in Jamaica for Hurricane Melissa. He said it might have been the most intense hurricane he's ever experienced. 

Morgerman just released his YouTube video of his experiences. It's a long one, lasting an hour and 54 minutes. But it's a must-watch for anyone who wants a glimpse of what a Category 5 hurricane is like. It's nerve-wracking, terrifying, tragic and heartbreaking. 

The video starts with Morgerman stressing out over getting to the right spot that is both safe and in a spot where the worst intensity of Melissa would hit. 

But soon, we get into the storm. Morgerman rode out the storm in solidly built concrete hotel building along the southwest coast of Jamaica. We spend a gusty. r ainy, night in his hotel room the night before Melissa hits. You could hear the howling start in the video by 2 a.m. 

And hit it does in this video. 

The storm ramps up awfully quickly. At 7:56 a.m. he said. "this is going to be a mighty blow."' By 8:15 a.m. there were already full blown tropical storm conditions - the palm tree in front of the hotel already bouncing around in the gales. The air pressure was beginning to fall so fast he could feel it in his years. 

By 9:30 a.m. all hell was breaking out.. By 10:15 debris was flying. At 10:45 a.m. with the hurricane peaking the howling wind and the falling pressure were hurting the ears of the people huddling in the building.

It's just a video, but I found myself getting scared watching it. After the storm, Morgerman interviewed survivors. Some of the stories left me wondering how they were still alive after the storm passed. 

Scenes of obliterated buildings and skeletons of large trees looks very much like the aftermath videos I've seen of especially intense Midwestern tornadoes. 

The video is so much worth watching. Especially since monster Category 5 hurricanes have become more common, and are expected to become even more common. Climate change is making the world more scary, and here's an example. 

I appreciate Morgerman's efforts to let us see for ourselves the power and terror of these hurricanes.  While you're at it, check out the rest of his YouTube channel for other incredible hurricane and typhoon footage. He's also got a web site and he's all over social media.    

Here is Morgerman's video. Click on this link to view, or if you see this image below click on that. 

Hawaii Volcano Destroys One Of The Cameras Monitoring It; Camera's Last Moments Are Fascinating

The live cameras trained on Hawaii's Kilauea volcano are often a must-watch. 

Screen grab from a camera on Kilauea just before it was
destroyed by an eruption Saturday. This shows lava
splattering down right in front of the camera. 
Moments later, the camera went off line, destroyed. 

Kilauea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, so we often in these web cams we are treated to views of fountains of lava gushing high into the air.  Powerful. Beautiful. Scary. 

On Saturday, Kilauea killed one of those web cams, and viewers got to watch its spectacular death. 

Now, this isn't really a weather or climate story, but the images are too good to pass up. 

The United States Geological Survey have set up the cameras around Kilauea for all of us to enjoy. All except the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory's V3 streaming camera is still operating. The camera named V3 was killed by the volcano on Saturday. RIP V3.  

Kilauea erupted Saturday, and it was one of the biggest of the year. Vents sent lava as high as 1,000 feet in the air. The lava burst out at angles, not straight up. That was especially the case from a southernmost vent, which is why the camera got nailed. 

Per The Watchers.

"Hot pumice and molten spatter from this south vent reached the V3 streaming camera site on the south rim of Halema'uma'u crater just before 10 HST (10 a.m. Hawaiian time). Video released by the U.S. Geological Survey shows the final seconds of the camera feed as the lens was obscured by tephra and the transmission abruptly ended. The device was later confirmed destroyed by direct impact and burial."

The video is something to see. At first you see huge amounts of lava rocketing skyward, then falling in an oddly graceful fashion. The eruption keeps getting closer, until you see hot pumice stones and chunks of lava landing right in front of the camera. 

Finally, the view is buried and smoke and steam. Right before it cuts out, a big chunk of red lava appears to land on the camera. 

Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.  

 

Florida Tornado Lifts Home Sideways For 20 Seconds With Woman Inside. Dramatic Video

As the Largo, Florida enters the neighborhood Wednesday,
roofing begins to fly off neighboring buildings. Then......

 A rare for June struck Largo, Florida Wednesday, damaging a mobile home park and yielding a dramatic video of what the twister did to one mobile home.  

You can watch the video at the bottom of this post. 

An older woman was inside, but miraculously, she got out with minor injuries.

The Ring security camera clip, from Fox 13 Tampa   which you can view at the bottom of this post, shows the tornado lifting here home so the bottom of it was vertical. The twister held the home in that position for nearly 20 seconds. Then the home slammed back down onto the ground, about where it had been in the first place. 

The woman, Deborah Mettler, 76, told WFTS-TV in Tampa Bay, Florida that it was like a Wizard of Oz experience.

You don't say.

The home next to the Ring camera is lifted off its 
foundation, and hangs perpendicular in the air for
nearly 20 seconds before crashing back to the ground. 

"I didn't realize I was actually up in the air......I was too busy doing somersaults and getting thrashed from one side of the room, through the wall, to the other side.

"I ended up back here in the bedroom. I had been in what was the family room and stepped out, which was good, because it's no longer there at all.  So if I had stayed in that room, I don't know what would have happened to me."  

The tornado damaged about 65 homes, but few were completely destroyed like Mettler's was. The EF-1 tornado had top winds of 90 mph and traveled about 2.1 miles through the city of Largo. 

VIDEO:

To view, click on this link or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Dashcam Shows Intensity Of California Tornado

 The rare California tornado that struck the community Scotts Valley last Saturday was "only" and EF-1 with a brief path. Wind topped out at 90 mph, and it only traveled for about a third of a mile before dissipating. 

In a screen grab from a dash cam in a parked truck
in Scotts Valley, California last Saturday, a tornado
emerges from behind a 7-Eleven and in a couple
seconds, will flip the vehicle with the dash cam.

A dash cam video of that tornado which recently emerged shows the power and suction of even a modest tornado that pales in comparison to the monsters that sometimes roam the Great Plains and South. 

Television station KSBW aired footage from a dash cam in a truck parked in the Mt. Herman shopping center lot that was hit by the storm. The video is at the bottom of this post.

In the video, things initially don't seem so bad. There's increasing wind and rain, and some small branches zip by in the gusts. But soon enough a narrow but violent looking funnel appears from behind a 7-Eleven store

The debris-filled swirl hits the front of the truck, then goes over it, flipping it on its side, coming to rest against a white car parked next to it.  The funnel is so narrow that it didn't really hit the white car just a couple feet to the right. That white car stays pretty much where it was.   

The truck that contained the dash cam was totaled, said owner Myrl Wallace. 

This small tornado demonstrates graphically that it's always important to seek shelter in a sturdy building if you hear a tornado warning. Vehicles are not safe places in tornados. 

It doesn't look like anybody was in the truck with a dash cam. And in the Scotts Valley case, the twister formed so quickly there was no tornado warning. But you get the idea. 

To view the video, click on this link. Or, if you see the image below, click on the image below

Dramatic Video Shows Extreme Waves Crashing Into Marshall Islands

Rogue waves crash into a U.S. Army
base in the Marshall Islands. 
Miraculously, nobody was
seriously injured or killed. 

Dramatic video making the rounds shows immense rogue waves crashing into a U.S. military base in the Marshall Islands.  

Judging from the news video that you can find at the bottom of this post, I'm grateful and pleasantly surprised that nobody was killed. 

In the video, you see two people standing outside the door of what looks like some sort of lounge or restaurant. The immense wave crashes in, and the people disappear and the door gets violently smashed in. 

It looks like it hits a woman in the head as she goes under water. The water rushes into the room. Then, just when you think everybody is starting to recover, an even larger wave crashes through the open doorway and the windows.   The power goes out.

Some minor injuries were reported, but unbelievably, nobody was seriously injured. Including the woman who was hit by the door and disappeared under the water in the video.  

The waves caused lots of damage at an important U.S. military base, though. According to ABC News:

"Flooding from the waves inundated one-third of the island of Roe-Namor, located in the Kwajalein Atoll in the northern Marshall Islands, according to the U.S. Army. The U.S. Army Garrison-Kwajalein Atoll base serves as a space and missile defense test range for the U.S. Department of Defense and contains some of the Army's most sophisticated tracking equipment."

ABC continues: 

"Ocean water had washed over the northwest side of the island. Standing water was found in several buildings on the base, such as the dining facility, the chapel and a theater, the Army said, citing an initial aerial damage assessment."

 There was no particular storm to set off the big waves, though Pacific Ocean storms this time of year can make surf higher than it is other times of the year.  Also, no earthquake that would have produced a tsunami.

Instead, wave energy combined to make even bigger blasts of water from the oceans.  

A photo taken at a U.S. Army base in the Marshall Islands
after massive rogue waves swept through. 

Says ABC News:

"Jon Sienkiewicz, chief of the ocean branch for the NOAA Ocean Prediction Center, said the extreme was was much larger than the average size of the waves hitting the island's shores.

'If there are multiple wave sets, then it's possible that the energy can just double in an area from two different set of waves,' Sienkiewicz told ABC News."

The waves probably would have caused havoc and damage on the Marshall Islands even if climate change wasn't a thing. But since sea levels are higher than they used to be, waves can really penetrate onto shore much better, causing even more damage than you'd otherwise get.

The Marshall Islands are in the remote western Pacific Ocean roughly half way between Hawaii and Australia.  

Here's the video from Good Morning America. Click here to watch the video, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Ignoring "Turn Around Don't Drown" Leads To An Epic YouTube Channel

Two more cars, among perhaps thousands, that have
fallen victim to Rufford Ford in England 

You've heard the phrase "Turn Around Don't Drown" over and over again, right?

It's weather and safety officials begging you not to drive your car through flood waters. Best case scenario when you do that is you destroy your car's engine, hence your vehicle. Worst case scenario is you get swept away and drown. 

Neither option is particularly appetizing. However, somebody in the UK has made a great YouTube channel out of the stupidity of driving through one flood prone spot. 

The back story first: 

The YouTube channel by Tom Sunderland involves Rufford Ford in Nottinghampshire in UK. As hotcars.com explains, there's something like 2,000 of these so-called fords in England.

They're basically small back roads that cross a small stream. Local councils have deemed bridges unnecessary because the brook is usually very shallow and these little roads attract mostly pedestrians and horseback riders, not cars. 

As hotcars.com tells us: 

"If you're on horseback, you can ride through it. Simple. Well, perhaps it's not that simple. Because there are many drivers who think it's fine for them to use it too. And for the majority of the year, it is, as the water levels of these little rivers may only be only three or four inches high during the spring, summer and autumn months. It's when we hit winter that things get interesting."

To be honest, it's sort of OK to drive through water that's three inches deep if you are 100 percent sure the road beneath hasn't been washed out or otherwise damage. I'd probably drive through Rufford Ford with my Toyota Tacoma if I knew the water was only three inches deep.

A couple weeks ago, I drove through three inch deep floodwaters on Shelburne Road in South Burlington. Me and my Tacoma survived just fine. 

The problem is that in winter, the water in Rufford Ford can be deeper than three inches. Much deeper. And shockingly, it seems thousands of people insist on driving through anyway. 

In the winter, very wet storms blow through the UK, and that little brook gets high. People are warned about their own stupidity in these cases. The local council puts up "Road Closed" signs at the entrance to Rufford Ford. 

When that happens, there's a four-mile detour. Many motorists aren't having these detours.

So they plow into the water, with predictable results. Cars get stuck, float away or just die.  Rufford Ford becomes a bit of a tourist attraction when the water is high. Judging from the videos, people gather at the ford and watch cars splash into the water and stall. A friendly local tows the cars out of the drink. The crowds  cheer and applaud the whole thing.  Frankly, it's great entertainment. 

It's mind blowing to watch some of these videos to see a car stuck in that Rufford Ford water, and then what does the next motorist do? Plow right into the water, despite the hints screaming at them not to do it. What the hell?

Tom Sutherland records all of these Rufford Ford fails, and posts them on YouTube. Sutherland makes bank, big time. His channel has more than 21,400 subscribers. Each of his videos ends up having tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of views. It's really on the same level as the 11'8" bridge videos from North Carolina, where hapless truck drivers try and fail to fit under a low bridge crossing. 

(They raised that bridge by eight inches but truck drivers continue to shear off the tops of their vehicles trying to squeeze under it). 

Apparently, quite a few other YouTubers do the same thing as Sutherland. Like I said, it's become a tourist attraction. 

Here's one video from the Rufford Ford collection. It's a compilation of the best fails and attempts in the past year. It's amazing how many stupid people there are. Click on this link to view, or watch by click on the image below.  

Viral Video Of Wind Turbine Burning After Lightning Strike Highlights Danger Of Wind Farm Storms

A burning turbine, still spinning
creates smoke rings in Texas after
it was struck by lightning. Image
from the viral video of the incident

 You might have seen the viral video of a burning wind turbine in Texas burning and spewing black smoke rings after being struck by lighting. If you haven't seen it, or want to see it again, it's at the bottom of this post. 

I suppose it's not surprising that wind turbines are susceptible to lightning strikes. They poke up high into the air, and are festooned with electronic equipment. Lightning can strike easily, and if it does, it can do a lot of damage. 

It's not surprising that a German study concluded that lightning strikes account for 80 percent of wind turbine insurance claims. 

The turbine in the viral video was struck in a Crowell, Texas wind farm in July.  A strong thunderstorm in the area was spitting out tons of lightning strikes, and one of those bolts hit the turbine. 

According to Fox Weather:

"Crews with the Crowell Volunteer Fire Department responded, but Fire Chief Perry Shaw said there was little his firefighters could do to put the fire out.

'We're not equipped to handle that kind of fire. Nobody in the area really is to speak of,' Shaw said. 

The fire chief estimated there were 800 gallons of oil in the gearbox and around 1,300 gallons of mineral oil in the ground level transformer, which caused the smoke to appear dark black in the sky."

Nobody was hurt, and the fire did not affect any other turbines in the wind farm, which has 139 windmills.

When I think of Texas I think of oil wells, among other things. However, Texas produces more power from wind than any other state. There's more than 13,000 turbines in the Lone Star State. 

The video is pretty fascinating. The smoke rings continue for awhile, with one arm of the turbine on fire and the whole thing still spinning. Then the whole turbine just kind of melts and falls apart. 

The video: Click on this link to view it, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

First We Had Tornado Pickup Truck Guy, Now We Have Tornado Clubhouse Guy

Cliff Horton had this chaotic view
of the building he was leaning
against disintegrating in a 
Georgia tornado last week. 

I guess this is turning out to be the spring of narrow tornado escapes.  

First we had the teenage in the pickup truck that got tossed violent around by a tornado, and then the teen blithely drove away from the chaos.

Now we have Cliff Horton, the Golf Clubhouse Tornado Guy. 

Horton was accidentally locked out of a the Black Creek Golf Course clubhouse in Ellabell, Georgia when a powerful tornado approached last Tuesday.  .

The National Weather Service office in Charleston, South Carolina said the tornado reached maximum strength around the golf course, with peak winds of at least 165 mph, which would make it a high end EF-3 tornado.  The NWS office said they want to investigate more to determine if it was actually an even stronger EF-4.

The tornado killed one person and injured several others. So yes, this was an extremely dangerous situation.  And Horton should absolutely, positively NOT been outside.  But as I said, he was accidentally locked out. He just had to take his chances. 

You can watch Horton's experience by clicking on this hyperlink to view the video. 

The striking thing about Horton is how amazingly he held his composure during the tornado. At the very least, I'd desperately need a new pair of pants if I had experienced the same thing. 

First you see the tornado knocking over several trees in the middle distance across a large lawn. "That is not good," Horton says in his southern drawl, figuratively putting on his Captain Obvious hat. 

Suddenly, you see winds start screaming from behind him, shredding a large oak tree. Then a large wave of debris races into view from above and crashes onto the ground in front of him, with many pieces swirling violently in front of him.

We hear Horton say "There goes the roof!" in a tone of voice you might use if you saw your cat knocked your glass off the coffee table for the umpteenth time. 

After the tornado passes, Horton surveys the field of debris, and says what all of us might. "Ho-Lee Crap!"  .

Unlike the Texas Tornado Teen, Horton has so far not made a round of media interviews, so I don't know what he's thinking now that we're a few days after the storm. 

Horton was extremely lucky because the part of the tornado that shredded the golf clubhouse came from the direction behind him, which meant presumably there were a few walls between Horton and the direction the wind was coming from.

When the roof disintegrated, it flew over him, crashing in the yard in front of him. It appears any debris  smashing through the building was blocked by the walls behind him. 

Horton didn't mean to be out in that tornado. But word to the wise: Don't try this at home!  Horton got lucky. Pretty much anybody else who is out in such a storm very likely wouldn't be. 

Here's another look at Horton's videos from USAToday. If you don't see the video below, click on this hyperlink. Otherwise, click on the YouTube logo in the image below to watch. 

Teen In Now-Famous Tornado Pickup Truck Video Is Fine, And Cool As A Cucumber

The driver of the red pickup truck in that viral tornado video
this week is Riley Leon, 16. As you can see in this 
smiley photo from KHOU, he's fine. 

UPDATE:

The only truly bad news in the story below, which I posted yesterday, was that Riley Leon's beloved truck was written off by the insurance company as a total loss.

Obviously it was still drivable, but the dents scratches and broken glass from the tornado left it in ruins.

The truck had been a family workhorse for at least a decade.  

The bad news is now a thing of the past, too. As Jalopnik reports:

"Chevrolet partnered with local dealer Bruce Lowrie Chevrolet in Fort Worth, Texas. He's getting a brand new 2022 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LT All Star Edition - a truck that regularly goes for over $40,000 a pop. Chevy is also donating an additional $50,000 to aid the American Red Cross disaster relief efforts in Texas."

Let's just hope Riley Leon doesn't take up storm chasing with his new truck. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

 

 There's been a viral video by Brian Emfinger circulating this week of that red pickup truck getting caught in a tornado along a highway in Elgin, Texas.  

As I noted the other day, the video show the tornado flipping the truck on its side, spinning it a couple times while still on its side, then violently plopping it down on its wheels. 

Meanwhile, power lights arc and explode all around. The driver inside the truck then seems to casually drive away from the swirling metal roof sheets, debris and dirt.

Local media in Texas inevitably tracked down the driver. He is Riley Leon, age 16. Among the television stations scoring an interview with Leon was Fox 7 in Austin. 

The kid says he's fine, both physically and emotionally. He's got a few minor scrapes and cuts on his left arm, and he's philosophical about what happened. "Life keeps going on and we cannot let ourselves get down because of a single problem," Leon said. 

Leon said knew dangerous weather was in the forecast Monday, but he didn't want to miss a job interview at Whataburger. However, he said he never expected the tornado to be at the same moment as me and at the same place.  

Still image of the viral video of the red pickup truck
caught in the Texas tornado, highlighted here so you can
see it better. The 16 year old boy who was driving the
truck is fine. 

He had missed a U-turn, but he found the next one and began using that when the tornado hit.  He told Fox 7 the experience was like this: 

"I was driving normally, seatbelt on, hands of my driving steering wheel......and I was going to take the U-turn. I felt my truck lift up and it took me to a ditch, and put me on my side and spin me out and that's where spinning into the road and it got on its four wheels and the video shows that I kept driving, but actually I just drove off. I drove out of the road to not cause more accidents"

Two things here that are cool:  First, he was wearing a seat belt, which I'm sure prevented Leon from being seriously injured or even thrown from the truck. Second, I'm impressed that the logic for him driving away is he didn't want anybody to collide with him, causing a bigger problem.  

He stopped down the road and a brown van pulled up, and the van's occupants asked  Leon if he was OK. At this point, he was undecided as to whether to just drive home or get help. He'd lost his phone in the chaos, so the people in the brown van let Leon use their phone to call his parents. 

Leon said he learned his lesson about driving when the weather is forecast to become dangerous. "The number one rule, the number one thing I learned was if there's going to be bad weather, stay home. No matter, no matter how important the thing is to you, stay  home. Your life, your life matters more than other stuff."

The teenager say he is bummed the truck seems to be destroyed, since it had been in the family for years. His father had recently sold it to him. On the bright side, Emfinger's video will be excellent proof to provide to his insurance carrier. 

Remarkably, the 11th grader went back to school on Wednesday. Everybody at school is calling him "Tornado Boy."  Oh, and he got the job at Whataburger. He starts Monday.  

Here's news video with Leon from television station KVUE with additional details. It also includes the Brian Emginger clip of the truck and the tornado. If you don't see the video displayed on your device, click on this hyperlink:

Best Explanation Of February And Its Weather Ever

A not so positive review of the month of February by KMOX 
reporter Kevin Killeen recently went viral, but the report
first aired five years ago and recently gained attention.

 Not everyone is into the depths of winter. Some people find it depressing.

Winter isn't my favorite season either , but there's some beauty to it. Some people don't see that. Which is cool, we don't have the right to demand people feel any emotion.  

Here in Vermont, winter is long.  It can be beautiful. Witness the lush powder snow, blue skies and fresh air we had this past Saturday.

Often, though, by February we're Febru-weary. 

Many of us in the Green Mountain State awoke this morning to bits of fog, freezing drizzle and lame snow flurries this morning.  Sure, you can find some appeal in those conditions, too. But it's an uncomfortable, quiet, sometimes mournful beauty. Or, just ugly if you're in that mood. 

The forecast around here  calls for indecisive weather this week, wobbling above and below freezing, with a few sprinkles of rain and snow.  It's characteristic of non-committal  February. Maybe the relative warmth this week suggests spring? Nope! Another cold blast is due by Sunday.

That's no surprise, we're used to it. February is great at slapping us in the face. 

For those of you who are realists about February radio reporter Kevin Killeen of KMOX in St. Louis is your man.

You MUST watch the video at the bottom of this post, which I regard as Pulitzer-worthy.

The video is actually old.  It first aired in February, 2016 on a dreary St. Louis day. But the video recently went viral, for the mysterious reasons viral videos do that. 

Killeen picked a terribly gloomy, foggy early February day to make his case that this month is at least it's straight forward in its depressing demeanor.  

A hazy shade of winter in St. Albans, Vermont Tuesday.
This is probably what Kevin Killeen was talking about
when he described February as not the 
month to put a bounce in your step. 

"February is an honest month. It doesn't hold up life any better than it really is"

Early in his segment, Killeen retrieves what had been a pretty, floral, obnoxiously happy umbrella from a trash can. At least it used to be like that. The umbrella is sad, broken, crushed, much like so many Americans sick of winter. 

The broken, discarded umbrella is a symbol of the cynicism that February brings, "the desperate flinging off of something that isn't true anymore."

He also notes that mankind invented happy February holidays like Valentine's Day and Mardi Gras, but February check-mates that, too. "But then February answered back with another holiday - Ash Wednesday. What other month could host a holiday that's designed to remind us that we're all going to die?"

There's lots more pearls of bleak February wisdom in Killeen's report, below. If you don't see the video on your mobile device, click this hyperlink.  Or, if you see the video image below, click on the red arrow, then the YouTube logo to see it most clearly. 

 

 

The Kind Of Civil Unrest I Love, Weather Related

A "riot" during record heat on Christmas Day in western
Australia was quelled by spray from firehoses and police
armed with water balloons. 

 A record heat wave struck western Australia over Christmas, bringing temperatures of 117 degrees to the town of Karattha.  

Heat waves can bring out the beast in people.  Seems like there's often civil unrest during hot spells. 

So it was in Karattha. 

It had all the hallmarks of those riots we see on the news.  A firetruck blasting crowds with water cannons.  Residents hurling objects at police, who cowered behind riot shields while counterattacking with thrown objects of their own. 

In this case, fortunately, the water cannons were gentle, the objects thrown by the "rioters" were water balloons, and the police were not firing rubber bullets. They had their own stash of water balloons.

Following is the video.  As often is the case, mobile phone users might not be able to view the video on this page, so click this hyperlink.

Otherwise, to best view the video, click on the arrow and then the YouTube logo:

Kentucky Bank Tornado Security Video Eerily Similar To Iowa Bank Video From 2008 Hit By Similar Intense Tornado

Screen shot of surveillance video in the front lobby of
FNB Bank in Mayfield, Kentucky a 9:29:05 p.m 
December 10.

As I have anticipated, security videos are surfacing of the terrible tornadoes that wrecked swaths of Kentucky and surrounding states earlier this month.  
 

Cameras were rolling at the FNB Bank in downtown Mayfield when the tornado arrived at 9:28 p.m. December 10. 

The surveillance videos show the interior of the bank, meticulously neat, clean and tidy before the storm arrives. Cheerful Christmas trees guard the front doors, which are adorned with well-crafted wreaths.   

As the power fails, posters in the bank lobby begin to sway in a breeze. Then, the front walls and doors implode violently into the bank, mowing everything inside down with debris.

The video is almost a carbon copy of surveillance videos taken at a bank in  Parkersburg Iowa on May 25, 2008 when an EF-5 tornado hit. Fortunately, both banks were closed at the time the tornadoes it. Unfortunately, the 2008 Iowa tornado killed 9 people and the Kentucky tornado killed at least 55 people. Other tornadoes in the outbreak earlier this month caused a total of at least 90 deaths.

Just five seconds after the above screen shot, the bank
is being blown apart by the EF-4 deadly tornado that
struck Mayfield, Kentucky. 

By the way, there are some updated, but still preliminary statistics about the Kentucky/Mayfield tornado that are jaw-dropping.   The tornado was on the ground for about three hours, traveling a distance of at least 165 miles. 

It wasn't the "Quad  State Tornado that early media reports suggested traveled 250 miles.   The supercell that produced the scary weather produced one EF-4 tornado earlier.  

 Then, as intense supercell storms normally do, the system cycled, leaving a 15-mile gap in tornado damage before the storm produced the new EF-4 tornado that hit devastated towns like Mayfield, Cayce and Dawson Springs, Kentucky.  

The Mayfield bank video is below. As usual, mobile users might need to click on this hyperlink to see it. Otherwise here it is. Click on the arrow and then the YouTube logo for best viewing. 

Review: Mike Olbinski's Latest Storm Time Lapse Video Is Sublime

My two favorite storm chasers on YouTube are Pecos Hank and Mike Olbinski.

Pecos Hank doesn't take himself too seriously, and he's a great storyteller. Plus unlike in so many other storm and tornado chasing videos, the ones Pecos Hank gives us are not yell fests.  The focus is on the storm, not the chaser.  

Olbinski is a favorite of mine because he is such an artist. He pays the utmost attention to the details in his cinematography.  

He's the best at capturing the grandeur of both the storms he captures and the landscape those storms affect. 

Olbinski's best video yet, "Shadows In The Sky"  has just recently been released.  I'm not going to show it in this post, as I want to make sure to direct all the clicks directly to the video.  He deserves each and every one of them.  

We all expect a sharp crispness to Olbinski's photography, and that's precisely what you get and more. After all, when he's not chasing storms, he's an accomplished Arizona wedding and portrait photographer. His editing technique comes through expertly.  He can make lemonade out of lemons  

You can tell that some of the storms Olbinski encountered that he used in "Shadows In The Sky" had sub-optimal light and surroundings. You can't expect every storm to do the work for you. 

But the photo editing made those problems disappear without compromising the reality of the storms. Nothing looks fake here.  That he is Arizona based helps, too, as he captures some awesome desert microbursts and haboobs.

With this video, Olbinski took a chance by using music with vocals. There's a big payoff with this. The song, "The Last Goodbye"  by Eric Kinny, featuring haunting vocals by Danica Dora, is the perfect accompaniment  to Olbinski's roiling storms. 

The music adds to the emotional mix of apprehension, awe, foreboding and excitement Olbinski's time lapses offer.  And it builds to a surprisingly satisfying crescendo. 

Weather geeks like myself of course will want to watch "Shadows In The Sky" repeatedly.  I also encourage people who are not the least bit interested in the weather to check it out.   If you like photography and art and fascinating video, this is the required viewing. 

I feel sorry for people who never pay attention to the sky, the clouds, the  heavens. Olbinski is creating converts to the happy club of people who are in awe of what nature can create when it is in a stormy mood. 

Parody Video: Nordic Laundry Day In Winter

Bragging rights? How to do laundry in Scandinavia.

 A lot of us northerners like to brag about how tough we are in the winter.

Though a late blast of winter in April is now completely exiting, us Vermonters sometimes like to brag about how tough we are in cold conditions. V .  

A few of us will of course brag about the  Great April "Snowstorm" of 2021 when our kids happily marched off to and from school through three feet of snow, uphill both ways. 

Never mind that just a few places got a few inches of snow, which quickly melted, and the weather here was really no biggie. Our grandkids won't have to know that when we tell our stories .

A comedy viral video from Jonna Jinton I recently found takes this winter bragging to a whole new level. In it, we see Jinton, a nice young blonde woman dressed in a long blue skirt and a light white short sleeve blouse tackling laundry day somewhere in a northern Scandinavia.  

Nope, it's not a simple matter of throwing clothes in a washing machine and hitting a couple buttons.  It involves some exercise, to put it mildly, on a frozen lake.  Then it's off to dry the clothes in what some might consider challenging conditions. 

It's a comedy video here, but check out Jonna Jinton's gorgeous YouTube channel.  Her videos are beautiful explorations of life in sub-Arctic Scandinavia.  If I wasn't such a cold weather wimp, I'd get on a plane and move to that area. Life there seems so simple, beautiful and natural, at least the way Jinton describes it. Even with winters that last at least six months.

Anyway, here's her comedy vid. Click on the YouTube logo to make it bigger and easier to see: 

Time Lapse Of Lake Michigan Ice Break Is Stunning

In this still from a time lapse of Lake Michigan, a large
crack appears as a huge sheet of ice separates from 
near shore ice in Chicago.

 During that intense cold wave a couple weeks ago, large swaths of Lake Michigan finally froze over.  

Since the ice was fairly thin, it wasn't very stable.  It was prone to gusty winds that could break up much of the ice. 

Which led to a spectacular time lapse video from last weekend.  A huge section of ice broke off from the rest of the ice hugging the Chicago shore. 

In the time lapse, you can see an immense crack form, then the ice departs "out to sea," as it were.

Nobody was on that ice, so nobody had to be rescued. 

Sometimes, though, you have people on ice that breaks away from shore and floats away.  This scenario necessitates helicopter rescues and such. 

Elsewhere on Lake Michigan, a big chunk of ice with 66 ice anglers on it broke away near Green Bay, Wisconsin in early February. They all had to be rescued via boats that can cut through ice. Nobody was injured. 

A few days later, about two dozen ice fishing enthusiasts had to be similarly rescued on Lake Superior.

Here in Vermont back in 1988, 21 people had to be rescued by helicopter on Lake Champlain when the ice they were on broke away from Charlotte and floated northward amid strong south winds. 

Without further ado, here's that wild video of the ice breaking away from Chicago. As always, click on the YouTube logo to make the video bigger and easier to see. 

Freezing Rain Is Funny (Sometimes)

Woman on the sidewalk in Kiev recently during her epic
battle with freezing rain

 There's a minimal amount of freezing rain in the Vermont forecast tonight. 

It will be very light, and confined to cold hollows. Most of us will be fine. 

But a little dab will do ya, so they say. Which leads us to a viral video from Kiev, Ukraine. 

Recently, they had some freezing rain, enough to coat city streets and sidewalks in a treacherous sheet of ice.  The city was paralyzed because the roads were glare ice. Flights were also canceled

Pretty much everybody in Kiev had trouble with the freezing rain,  but especially the woman wearing the backpack in the video below.  We have a speeded up version of her long struggle with a small, but extremely slick incline on a sidewalk.  One guy tries to help her, but gives up in despair. 

After a long struggle, the woman with the backpack seems to give up, too.

Maybe I shouldn't laugh, as we've all had struggles with slipping and sliding. And one can get hurt falling on it.  The woman appears to be uninjured though.

Watch the video below for yourself. As always in this blog, click on the YouTube logo on it, to watch it on that platform, where it will be bigger and easier to view.

All this video is lacking is a Yakity Sax soundtrack: