How are you faring in this December storm?

tweeterhawk

Well-Known Member
Would like to hear about damage, outages, injuries. Seeing reports of tornados near Atlantic, Ogden, Fort Dodge, Mason City. Continuing and increasingly high winds after the front went through. Lots of trees and power lines down, 142,000+ without power. Hope everyone is staying safe!
 
Nothing major. Power out for a half hour. Lost a little trim on the house. Didn't have the tree fall that I wanted to go and didn't lose limbs that need to come down after the derecho. One tree down in our neighborhood and a few shingles blown off a house. Typical t-storm damage. Lucky compared to other places.
 
We didn't have any damage and very few limbs down that I saw in the area. We were under a tornado warning from about 9-10, which made it nearly impossible to get the kids to bed to avoid meltdowns before school this morning, but can't complain.
 
Mostly a nothingburger on the east side of Iowa City. Some wind, a bit of rain. Sirens went off once. I of course went outside and checked things out like any good midwesterner does.
 
Mostly a nothingburger on the east side of Iowa City. Some wind, a bit of rain. Sirens went off once. I of course went outside and checked things out like any good midwesterner does.
Mostly a nothingburger on the east side of Iowa City. Some wind, a bit of rain. Sirens went off once. I of course went outside and checked things out like any good midwesterner does.
I would drive my wife nuts every storm when we lived in Iowa. When the sirens were blaring she would grab the kids and head to the basement. I would get my camera and go out on the deck.
 
I would drive my wife nuts every storm when we lived in Iowa. When the sirens were blaring she would grab the kids and head to the basement. I would get my camera and go out on the deck.
I did that until the first time I actually saw one. It was a few miles out of town and not heading for us, but for some reason it fricking terrified me when I looked out off my deck. I'm not usually a guy who gets shaken up, and I've unfortunately seen some pretty bad stuff happen in person, but that tornado for whatever reason about gave me a heart attack.

I always wonder if there's some human instinct that frightens us when we see certain things like that. Or maybe I'm just a big wuss.
 
Our home on the south side of Rock Rapids had a large picture window with a SW view that was panoramic. Corn fields dominated the view. I remember watching numerous tornadoes dropping down and then going back up to disappear. Yes, we did the basement thing on rare occasions. But, the storms were a sight to see. This was in the 60’s.
 
I had some minor damage but nothing serious. Funny thing is I had people out here fixing damage to my home from the storm back in September. They were scrambling to get it done before the storm hit and then the fear was it getting ruined again. Fortunately nothing too serious.
 
Would like to hear about damage, outages, injuries. Seeing reports of tornados near Atlantic, Ogden, Fort Dodge, Mason City. Continuing and increasingly high winds after the front went through. Lots of trees and power lines down, 142,000+ without power. Hope everyone is staying safe!

We drove up to Spencer, IA that morning. Very windy drive but still only 25-30 mph. The thin, powerful storm line hit just before 6 pm up there and then the wind was howling. Very strong into the morning hours so it lasted maybe 9 hours. The tornado warning was sounded and we all went in the basement.

The next day I compared the windspeeds and air pressure for the previous day into that day. Spencer air pressure went from about 28.8 down to 27.9 right when the storm front blew through and that is when the winds peaked at 60-80 mph. Then the high pressure area behind the front just kept rushing air in as the air pressure slowly climbed up to about 28.5 by 6 AM the day after the storm and then by 29+ when we drove back to Des MOines Thursday at 6 pm. Luckily just a couple of 2 inch limbs and lots of sticks down at home in DSM.
 

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