I posted this video of a cold air funnel on my little-used YouTube page (and previously on Instagram, which is a bit more used.) Now that I think of it, it was quite a day for us: We were on our way to the drive-in, our first trip to the movies in something like two years (Black Widow and The Boss Baby: Family Business, both good). On the way, being half-starved, we stopped at McDonalds, also for the first time in about two years. (chicken nuggets and cheeseburger, both okay). I noticed what looked to me a lot like a wall cloud to the south, and as we waited at the stop light nearby, sure enough, a rotating funnel came down out of it.
Luckily I'd already heard cold air funnels might be developing, or I'd have squealed like a toddler and wanted to chase it. By the time we got to the drive-in it had vanished, but as we waited another one came down (or the same one again), so I zoomed my iPhone all the way in and managed to get a serviceable video.
Cold air funnels are kind of baby tornadoes, or maybe supersized dust devils. I've seen a few before, and even on those few occasions when they do touch ground, they rarely cause any damage. Just the same, I'd imagine they gave some people between Auburn and Fort Wayne a bit of a scare, if they happened to be looking up at the time.
Not too bad, it seems, although you can never tell for sure until its over.
As you may have heard, here in Germany we didn't have so much luck this time. Nearly 200 people died in flash floods 2 weeks ago, and hundreds more are injured. The property damage goes into the billions, nobody really knows yet. Motorways, railway lines , bridges, roads, houses - all washed away inside a few hours. Also its pretty close to where my mother lives, but she was lucky and didn't get affacted. As it is with flash floods, its mainly the very bottom of valleys that get hit. Little rivers of 20ft width and knee deep suddenly grew to 200 yards and 20ft deep water.
Strangely enough: also the region I spoke about lately - the Sauerland - was hit hard as well. It will take years to rebuild all that.
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Yes, we've been following the horrible situation over there--or at least, the news covers it until they cut to go over and cover the wildfires again. We don't get flash flooding around here--flooding yes, but we're flat enough that it's usually more gradual. My wife's hometown, which is in the Mississippi River area of Missouri, was flooded almost completely during a spring flood back in the 90s, but they had no deaths or injuries.
But my relatives in the "hollers" of Kentucky and Tennessee have way too much experience with that problem. I hope none of us have to experience it again anytime soon.
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Yes, the fires are becoming a big problem in many parts of the world, connected to more heat waves occuring. They are also having problems with that in the mediterranian region, Italy, Greece, Turkey ect. Large areas of forest burned down, villages destroyed, people killed. And a lot of tourist places evacuated - that had just recently reopened after the Covid lock downs.
And its hot there. Like in Greece, I mean they are used to hot summers - but now its kind of Death Valley hot. And it stays hot at night, too.
Yes, the flash floods are particulary destructive. Before, my mother used to live in a town at the river Rhine (the German Mississippi, sort of) and flooding where not unuasual there, every few years they had more or less severe floodings, after the winter when the snow melts ect.
But because of that, the people there are prepared for floodings, and the water rises slowly. Then they clear the stuff out from their basements and ground floor, and just wait until its over. Of course its still a mess, because calling this stuff "water" is a very polite desciption. But they have tiled walls and floors, so they go through the house with a steam cleaner and wash it out, bring their stuff back in and thats it. Till next time.
But the flash floods happen so fast, that people cant even run fast enough. And the destruction is immense. There a pictures of streets, where even the tarmac is washed away, and you can see the big drain pipes and electricity cables and water lines that are normally 6 feet underground. And solid stone houses collapsed, because the ground underneath their foundations was washed away.
The people in the affected places do get much support from all over Germany, still its very hard for them. And of course there is always the thought "What if it happens again?", for those who are having to rebuild - or leave.
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I suspect it would be after about the second time of being underwater that I'd decide to pick up and leave. But of course there are very few places anywhere in the world that aren't open to some kind of natural disaster. I think I've mentioned before that I keep a close eye on that kind of stuff, so I knew about the fires elsewhere, and the flooding, and such ... but I suspect a lot of Americans are too busy worrying about the problems over here to put a lot of thought into other places.
Here in northern Indiana our weather's been oddly--normal. Hot, yes, but hot is what we do in the summer. We've had some pretty severe thunderstorms the last several days, but again ... summer. The only big difference here is that our sunsets and sunrises have been spectacular, thanks to smoke from the western US and Canada floating over us in the upper atmosphere.
I remember a couple of decades ago reading that researchers had determined wild weather like this is actually normal for the world--that we had, in fact, been going through an unusually mild climate. That talk went away when global warming became a thing, and before the research there was a lot of talk about man-made global cooling.
I told my wife the other day that the Earth is just trying to shake us off: We're like ticks on a dog, and we finally bit once too often.
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