Friday Storms

Did everyone in the Chicago area survive the 2 vicious storms that rolled through here Friday? We had 70 MPH winds in the first one, and 50 plus in the second one. We lost another huge tree, the twin to the one we last earlier this year. The biggest part fell on the road. The Road Commissioner came right away with a CAT and pushed it into the field so no one would crash into it. Another tree is laying across the sidewalk. We lost power around 3:30 pm and didn't it it back until well after midnight. 10 panels are missing from the greenhouse along with the doors. Huge branches from an old Ash tree are laying in the yard. Our place looks like a disaster area.

I hope no one was hurt at your homes. We are OK, just sick about the loss of our landscape.

Oh gosh, I'm so sorry you lost your trees and your greenhouse pieces. I looked at your picture and my heart sank. I can only imagine how you feel. That really was some storm. I'm glad everyone is ok though, that's most important, right? Glad they could get your power back on relatively quickly. Everything is ok here, and we have no damage. We have lots of sticks to clean up and the pool's a mess but that's nothing. In fact, I need to get out there and get to work on that pool. I think every needle from the nearby ash tree went into it.

Oh gosh! So sorry for the loss of your trees and property damage. My trees are pretty precious to me even though I'm almost sure (in the height of the storm) that one's going to fall on the house.
Spent a steamy 2 hours picking up sticks and branches but everything here is ok. The power flickered a couple of times but that was about it.

So sorry that your tree and garden area got hit so bad, glad that you are OK. I hope that you get some help with the clean-up.
Seems to me that we are getting hit with more storms nowadays..although maybe just because I am getting older.

I think the whole planet has been hit with weird weather. I'm upset, but what's a few trees compared to the devastation the gulf coast people are facing. A few trees won't ruin my way of life, but it is overwhelming.

The oil spill isn't putting people out of their homes like the weather has the past weeks. Tornadoes all across the mid section of the country & floods in many states.
Roughly 250 homes lost in a northern MN town & 75 farms gone in Southern MN in the outbreak on Thursday. 3 people also lost their life.

Bernie

Wow, bad news all around. Pasttime so glad you're alright. we didn't get hit here in Madison. (at least this time). Hope that you can find some blessing in it all. that's really the challenge isn't it. God bless!

Bernie, how true -- very hard to distinguish one tragedy from another! So sad for anyone to be affected by something over which there is no control. Mother Nature is not always nice to us.

Pastime, I'm so glad that you are at least safe -- The rest can be dealt with, no matter how aggravating!

Sandy

I didn't find out about MN until last night. Those poor people, how horrible.

Some of the old Spruce trees around here look like they were suck out of the ground, root and all.

So sorry to hear about your trees and other damage, pastime. Sounds like you really got hit with the very worst of those storms!

My friend lives in Wadena, MN which, if you've seen on the national news, was devastated by tornadoes last week. Her house was spared, but the town around her is in ruins, from the high school to the community center to many many homes. It's awful.

Pastime, I'm so sorry about your downed trees and property damage. And my heart goes out to anyone else who suffered storm damage.

We were lucky here; we were south of the severe weather. There were watches, but never a warning. I'd say what we ended up with amounted more to thunder showers than anything.

We had storm warnings again last night, but everything went north and south of us. I was prepared for more tree and greenhouse damage, but we lucked out this time too. My greenhouse looks more like a gazebo right now with all the missing windows.

I'm glad your friend's home was spared. Everyone there must be devastated at the loss of their community. What a nightmare.

Lots of rain here yesterday. Cross Plains really got hit..seems to be where we were "eyeballing a new house and having coffee. Streets flooded on west side of Madison. I just waited out the first storm and cleared the drain of the eaves trough ..I swear that a dead mosquito would block it. Plants took a bit of beating, but sure that they will perk up soon.
Ducks are Very happy:) The grape jam for the orioles became grape juice..MMMMMM

So sorry for the damage everyone has suffered through these storms.Iam very thankful that in the last2 yrs we have cut down 2 Very Very lg. trees ,that both hung over the house,and they were on the westside,where the wind seems to always come from..I used to have bad dreams about those trees falling on the house during storms.We didnt suffer any damage.Boy did it cut through here it was scary,several small tornados were all around us.I saw lots of really twisted trees,blew a semi over on its side not far from here.I think the storms are worse,seems to me the wind is wicked all the time now.Yes my orioles are drinking grape juice too!!!!

I know it would be awful for me to say "enough" to all of the rain and humid weather but...

Another Friday storm here.
36 reports of tornadoes in MN. Worst one was about 20 miles from us. No huge damage, but lots of trees tore up, houses & other buildings damaged. Crops completely wiped out from the hail & wind. No one seriously injured.
Saturday night another round of storms following the same path. More trees down & power lines down.
We must have got 4" of rain between both nights. Only problem here is a part of our garden under water. Creek is to high to take it all at once. Hopefully it will be down by morning.
Sunny today. No rain forecast for a week!

Started to look gray, but cleared up. Looking forward to dry, cooler week:)

My husband and I were in staying in Eagan, MN to attend the National Hosta Association convention. Friday night, we stepped outside after dinner and rushed back to our hotel because the skies were black and looked like they would open up any minute. Just when we reached the hotel the warning sirens started going off. The front desk clerk said that it was a tornado warning for the county, but that we weren't in the path of it. We got up to our hotel room and I opened the blinds to see a very pronounced wall cloud. The whole storm appeared to be rotating. Scary stuff! (But kind of thrilling for a weather buff like me, too. I'm a trained amateur spotter.)

The following day we heard that a few of the folks on the hosta garden tour suffered some bad hail damage to their plants. We saw quite a few tree limbs down in the Tomah, WI area on our way home, too. And I guess parts of !-35 in the Twin Cities were underwater.

Crazy weather! But then...isn't it always?

Here's a shot of some mammatus clouds I took this weekend (after the storm that produced the wall cloud.) It's through a hotel screen, but you can see how dramatic it was.

Pastime, my heart hurts for you about the loss of your tree. I know how much I love mine and get very defensive when people call them "weed trees". (Silver maples) But, I totally love your attitude that it's not as large as it seems in light of what's happening to the gulf coast and the wildlife and people dependent on the waters there. Frankly, I think that disaster will continue to unfold in a monstrous way.

These storms also concern me . . . in my 51 years in the Chicago area, I've not seen this type, at least at this extent, of tropical weather - very violent storms, followed sometimes immediately by sun, followed by storm, sun, storm, sun. It's really weird. Our climate is not right. It's changing.

We're supposed to get a break this week, cooler and no rain for a while. We used to get a storm now and then, but I don't remember them being so violent or so frequent. Seems like all I've done lately is clean up sticks and branches. We still have a huge branch hanging precariously in the crotch of a tree. There's no way to reach it without heavy equipment. Neighbors have a big CAT with a bucket. Hopefully he can free it. Of course, when it falls it's going to land on my big Yew. No getting around it.

We're certainly going through strange times.

Who got another storm sunday,we did again,man we got hit with wind and 2inches of rain in 45 min,flash flooding again. we had been riding our motorcycles got home following the first bits of rain.wind started picking up,soo glad we got home no tornado warnings just biggg wind got scary for awhile ,I hate it when the gusts do the twister thing with the trees.Yes enough already.the weather certainly is different now days....wayyy

The Sunday am storm here weakened as it got close to Lake Michigan (at least on the IN side) so no real damage. Just awful humid weather. The cold front started coming through late yesterday afternoon and brought some real relief. This morning's just gorgeous. Looks like it's going to be a beautiful week as well but wouldn't you know I'm heading to TN and the 90's? Ugh.

They got hit hard a litttle north of us and lower michigan,Yes we got a bit of relief after the storm ,but this am its thick out there, Looking forward to the cooler temps.