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So how did you get started with weather as a hobby?


audioguy3107

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I was outside riding my bike after school in the Arrowhead subdivision, on a very warm April 3,1974 spring day, when my Mom and Aunt started yelling for me to come inside. As I coasted in the driveway the front door and windows were open and I could hear channel 7 saying there was a tornado warning. My Mom and Aunt grabbed both of my sisters and we headed to the bedroom closet. All of us were in there for what seemed like forever when my Mom and Aunt decided to go look towards the front of the house, because all we could see from where we were, was sunshine. So I waited with my sisters for a few seconds before following them and when I got to the front door all I could see was the biggest, blackest cloud I have ever seen in my life. My Aunt and Mom come rushing back inside and we all ran back to the closet as the sound of wind and destruction grew louder. At one point the wind was all I heard and that's saying something with two women and three children screaming in a closet :lol: When it was over, everything around us was demolished. Our house was still standing, but our neighbors(and a lot more) weren't so lucky. We had to walk to our Grandparents house on the other side of town(near the IGA) and the destruction we encountered was....well.... devastating to say the least. Some of what I had seen the wind do had me wanting to know how it was possible. I started learning everything I could and would ask for a "weather station" each Christmas. :)   By the time the coldest winter and blizzards of 78-79 came around I was already a weather nerd...lol...and moving here just in time to experience Hugo checked off another extreme weather experience :D 

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My marriage drove me to my weather hobby.It was based solely as a matter of survival.

February 17-18 Kentucky snow storm 1994.Drove in whiteout conditions, stranded in coal country for a week.

May 15th 1995, my honeymoon, 14 days in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota. First awe inspiring sight was a partially frozen Lake Superior in Duluth. Being a southern girl, i couldn't understand a big lake like being white. During our 14 day stint, I saw sleet, not sleet falling from the sky, this came up off the water of the canoe country lakes and the wind was so fierce it just blew AT you.We would paddle out in the morning 2 or 3 lakes away from camp, only to reverse course hours later to find the portage lakes with 2ft rollers coming head in.

April 1996, 3 months preggers, fishing on Lake Lanier and my nutty husband has me in hail, wind,buckets of rain, and tornado sirens from town going off in the distance. Our little boat at that time only had a 9.9 Johnson and there was no way we were beating that storm home.

You see the pattern, boat, + outdoors + husband = me being stuck in a storm with him.I have hundreds of hours logged with this man and 75% of that I worried about what freakish weather is going to scare the bejesus out of me this time.  So I became a human barometer really quick. Our trips are mostly always remote (best fishing EVER) and gadget free. The long range forecasts are very important to me whenever he is involved.

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I got a degree in meteorology.  Most expensive hobby ever.

 

I can definitely relate there. I gave it two tries to get my degree, but it just wasn't meant to be. Having math as your worst subject in school doesn't bode well when trying to get a degree in meteorology. Not all was lost though. I was able to get a minor in meteorology and make A's and B's in every meteorology course I was allowed to take. It's a shame really, because I know I would have made a great meteorolgist, but I know you have to have the math background.

 

Anyway, I 've loved the weather ever since I can remember. Growing up in Charlotte I can remember staying up all night if they were calling for snow. I remember the big snows we use to get back in the late 70's to late 80's. Especially the Jan. 88' snow with temps falling into the teens during the day with 14" on the ground. Waking up early to falling trees during Hurricane Hugo in Sept. 89'. Riding out the western eye wall of Hurricane Ivan in 04' when I lived in Mobile. Great/terrifying memories for sure. :)  

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Two things for me:

 

1) In elementary school I hated reading so I fell behind.  Well my parents wanted me to read a book so bad they said they would give me $5 to read a book (the whole thing).  They didn't care what it was.  So I found this weather pocket guide type of book and that started my interest.

 

2) Back in the early 80s we had this stationary late evening thunderstorm dump who knows how many inches of rain in our yard.  Needless to say the runoff was tremendous and we had this "river" flowing from the property behind our house right through our front yard that created a days worth of shoveling dirt out of the street.  The power of that fascinated me.

 

Also the ATL snows of the early to mid 80s didn't hurt anything either.  :)

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My dad definitely was the person who got me interested in weather.  He was an anchor/"weatherman" for our local TV station in eastern NC back in the early '70s and while he had no formal meteorological training, he knew the basics.  When he left TV, he started farming and of course, that livelihood depends heavily on the weather, so we were always watching it and dad was always watching the skies and talking to me about it, even as a small kid.  To this day, we can't talk about politics or religion with one another, but dang if we can't talk about the weather :) 

 

The events that really sealed my interest, though, were the '84 tornado outbreak (my dad had a heart attack that night, stressing about the weather and his crops, although we didn't have any damage - it was about 15 miles southeast of us) and the '88 tornado in Raleigh, which came very close to my grandmother and uncle's homes.   For years I was scared spitless of any tornado warning or severe storm in general, but as I became older, I decided to learn more about them; now it's way more fascinating than scary.  

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My father had a love for all things weather, especially snow. I definitely got that trait from him. Back in the late '70s and early '80s, when I was a young pup, I can remember my dad spending hours turning the porch light on and off waiting for the snow. In those days (as you all know)  there was no internet or cable tv, so he did not have the radar to tell him when the snow would occur. He just knew that snow was possible, and he would look for it. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost.

 

He died not long after the explosion of the internet and so he never really got to use it as a tool to track the snow. I sometimes wonder if he were still alive if he would prefer to see live radar or if he would still do it the old fashioned way.

 

I suppose I'll never know, but I do know its impossible for me to do it the old fashioned way.

 

The event that really got me into it was the March 1980 blizzard. We lived on the Outer Banks at the time, and we actually had 2 significant snow storms that year, one in early February, followed by the big daddy in March. Those storms are etched in my mind for eternity.

 

 

Thanks for starting the thread, by the way. A lot of good stories in here.

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I honestly don't remember. I've always loved it...all of it. Used to watch every forecast on every channel when a winter storm was coming and cling to the one that gave me the most snow, very much like I do with models now (funny how some things never change).

I would drive my parents crazy during weather casts, switching back and forth between 3 stations to catch their forecasts, depending on where the were in the segment (who cares about Obs, amirite??).

Loved thunderstorms, snow, heavy rains, flooding, fog, all of it for as long as I can remember. I remember correcting my first grade teacher when she kept calling Cumulus clouds Come-bus clouds. Haha!

Love all earth science-type stuff actually. Like Triad, math isn't my forte. I hate it actually, so that part was specially hard for me in school.

Anyway, I have no idea how I became interested in it initially. :)

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Used to watch every forecast on every channel when a winter storm was coming and cling to the one that gave me the most snow, very much like I do with models now (funny how some things never change).

I would drive my parents crazy during weather casts, switching back and forth between 3 stations to catch their forecasts

 

Dude, that's hilarious, I used to do the exact same thing and my dad would always yell at me trying to understand what I would change by switching from one local channel to the next.  I never seemed to enjoy Ken Cook here in Atlanta since he seemed to be the most conservative one, but now I understand why he doesn't hype.  Too funny.

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I trace it back to a misspent childhood in Tulsa. The National Bank of Tulsa had a huge "color-coded" flashing light on top of the building ... and since it was the tallest building it was visible for miles. When severe weather approached, the bank would flash red. I'd get on my bike and pedal to a hill a couple of miles from my house and watch the storms roll in.

 

Since then, I've lived in lots of places, seen blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, even a couple of decent earthquakes ... but watching those squall lines rolling across the Oklahoma landscape has stayed with me.

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