Highest wind ever experienced?

[John_Cillis 2,406]

With Hurricane Michael hitting Florida I wonder what winds fellow simmers might have experienced.  I have been in Tornadoes, I am not including them as my highest winds because I do not know what the winds were, they were localized and horrific and caused us some property damage, and in three cases almost cost us our lives, such as when one came out of nowhere when my Dad and I were golfing near Napa, California, where there are hardly ever any Tornadoes.  We were trapped outside and my Dad said the small Tornado's funnel went right over me.  Fortunately it had not hit the tree or buildings on the course yet, unlike Dorothy being sucked up into the skies in the funnel I was only hit with a lot of small branches and sand and just scratched up a bit in the ten to fifteen seconds I was in the small Tornado, but I could only see dust and out to my hand.  The Tornado had descended from a Thunderstorm that materialized from completely clear skies in a matter of twenty minutes.  The golf course was crowded that day, after the Tornado hit my Dad and I said "What the heck" and we played out the next nine holes anyway, but could not putt on the debris covered greens.  A 75 foot tall pine tree was uprooted and fell across the first hole's fairway and portions of the pro shop's and outbuildings roof tiles were ripped off.  In California,, of all places.

For me the worst straight line winds I ever experienced were in the 1996 Mesocyclone disaster that hit Phoenix and damaged our airports, which is why I introduced this topic because of something my Light Sport CFI told me.  In 1996 I worked for Doubletree Hotels Corporate office as their PC specialist, I was responsible for purchasing software, equipping our hotels and company with PC's and laptops, and networking them together.  I did not do it alone, I had an assistant who worked for IBM, we outsourced for their help, and he helped me with a lot of the "grunt work", a brilliant man close to my age and good friend, always full of good humor and he had my back. 

Anyway, my desk overlooked Sky Harbor airport, our building was on Van Buren and 44th street and the tallest building near Sky Harbor, a beautiful mirrored glass, futuristic looking building.  I had my dream desk, aviation buff, looking over Sky Harbor, and we were located close to there because I and other staff would go on business trips, me mostly to Cincinnati where our accounting offices were where I flew to deploy our systems a couple of times, plus they sent me to Houston, Detroit and Clearwater Beach Florida.  Back to the Mesocyclone, I was looking out my window when I noticed two storms and two gust fronts approaching each other, one from the north, and one from the south and my route home, some twenty miles, lay in between.  I told everyone I was leaving a bit early and warned them to do the same due to what I saw--mammatus clouds, greenish in color, signs of a rotating mesocyclone, but in this case there were two.

I drove home, do not know why but I grabbed gas, and looked at the mammatus clouds now directly overhead, and I could see them moving, almost pulsing, and their eerie green color.  I got home, pulled my car into the garage, my wife was thankfully already safely home, and I waited for the fun to start.  In five minutes I heard a banging sound on our garage, like someone was knocking it with their fist, then the outside went completely gray and visibility plummeted to about 100 feet, and the wind came.... and came..... and came.... And I looked outside and saw something I had never seen before, my neighbor's roof tiles peeling off, first in small bunches then in big bunches, and all the other homes to the west of us, same thing.  Oddly though it seemed as if our house was somewhat sheltered from the full effect of the wind, but I imagined us loosing our roof tiles like our neighbors.  The winds were 100 mph, gusting to 115 mph, for over a half hour, beyond hurricane force, in one of the worst US weather disasters that year.  Deer Valley airport was especially bad hit, where the 115 mile an hour winds had their way with the unhangared aircraft, even some hangars were blown down and damaged.   The reason why the storm was so bad is that two mesocyclones collided and merged into one, monster, rotating mesocyclone.  Hail fell, rain fell, but the chief danger was the wind.

The next morning as I drove back to work the debris was piled high in the middle of the main thoroughfares.  We were on the southern edge of the area hardest hit, which extended a fair bit westward and somewhat eastward from where we lived and northward to Deer Valley airport.  Some ten years later my CFI showed me a way to tie down aircraft to avoid what happened in Deer Valley, he claimed none of the aircraft tied down his way were damaged, but 115 mph winds?  I wonder....  Altogether we had 160 Million in damage, in 1996 dollars, limited to a 15x10 mile area.  Block fences fell, tiled roofs lost their tiles, and Mobile Homes--forget it, ripped apart.  But I do not recall, thankfully, great loss of life.  In Phoenix we are well educated to watch out for our summer Monsoon storms.  Just one block to the north, some of our neighbors did not have power back for two weeks.

Our home lost no roof tiles and had no damage.  Why?  My neighbors to the east where the winds came from had two large pine trees between their house and ours.  Their trunks were protected from the force of the wind somewhat, and their foliage deflected the wind from our roof.  Ours was the only undamaged home on the street to our astonishment, and when we sold our home two year later an inspection confirmed the roof was sound.  And we did not have tile, just plain old shingles.  Someone was watching over us big time, that is for sure!

John

 

[fppilot 4,360]

Over 120 MPH in eastern North Carolina in the mid 1950's when I was in grade school. Hurricane Hazel.  Was in the small town of Ahoskie, about 30 miles inland.  Can imagine what the people inland that distance in today's storm are experiencing.  Never to be forgotten.

Edited October 10, 2018 by fppilot

[John_Cillis 2,406]

13 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Over 120 MPH in eastern North Carolina in the mid 1950's when I was in grade school. Hurricane Hazel.  Was in the small town of Ahoskie, about 30 miles inland.  Can imagine what the people inland that distance in today's storm are experiencing.  Never to be forgotten.

I remember reading of Hazel when I was a young boy and seeing a photo "Hazel was here"...  They said today the fiercest part of Michael fortunately made landfall in a fairly unpopulated area, almost as if the hurricane said "I am not after humans, just need to dump some water"....  There will still be damage.  I have had only two diversions due to weather once.  Coming home from Europe I was diverted because of a severe storm at JFK to Philly after circling near JFK for two hours.  And flying from Zacatecas Mexico non-stop into Denver, we had to divert to Pueblo because of fog, but we were able to wait it out and resume our flight whereas the JFK flight ended at Philly, which although close to JFK was bright, sunny and humid.

The worst winds I have ever landed in were in Philly, in clear skies, on a small Beech puddle jumper inbound from New York.  We had a wicked crosswind and on final in my window seat I could see the runway as the pilot crabbed for landing.  He warned us it would be rough, but he nailed it although I hated the rocking back and forth I felt as the Beech settled during the landing.  When I deplaned I was taken aback by the force of the wind, had trouble walking against it into the terminal.  Great airmanship by the pilot near his aircraft's crosswind's limits, and highest wind I ever landed with.

The most severe turbulence I ever felt was just east of the Rockies, which we were warned of as the pilot and us passengers saw lenticular clouds below.  We were cruising in clear air and just dropped, with the push carts and their contents lifting off the aisle and floating for several seconds, and the overhead bins opening up, it was like being in the "Vomit Comet" and the longest sensation of weightlessness I have ever felt.  I was prepared and had secured my things and drink, my fellow passengers weren't as drinks and objects spilled onto them.  And the poor flight attendant had no time to get to her seat, but was otherwise unhurt, just barely missing hitting her head on the ceiling of the aircraft.  After the drop, passengers and flight attendants and pilots unhurt, we continued onward, but it could have been worse had the pilot not warned us.  If you see a lenticular cloud (I like to call them UFO clouds) they are signs of very high winds aloft, approaching 200 mph.

John

 

[thibodba57 462]

Well I have a picture in my Flickr account but for some reason I can't seem to get the embed scripts anymore.  Fastest Jet stream  I've been in is 203 Kts or 233.MPH.  Off the coast of Japan at FL330, last winter.

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

180 km/h or about 115 mph at my old house in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia (Hurricane Juan). I stood behind the house in the storm and stepped to the side of the house to stand in it to feel how powerful that was. When you stand behind your house it is kind of like driving with your windows down and sticking your hand out the window, only you are sticking your hand out of the side of the house. Get a feel for it and step out into it and lean into the wind. If the wind blows you over roll back behind the house again. 

Sounds crazy but when you are full of adrenaline you do stupid things. That old house was built in the 60s and was solid brick, survived every hurricane throne at it over the decades so not going anywhere. I loved that house. 

Edited October 11, 2018 by Matthew Kane

[Delta111 29]

Hurricane Andrew....Homestead AFB summer 92....

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Hopefully no members just experienced Hurricane Michael.  Mexico Beach, which saw so much damage, is a small town of about 1000 pp, and I just finished seeing aerial shots of the damage on CNN.  I remember Hurricane Andrew very well, I went to Florida for the first time in my life shortly after Andrew, to Orlando-Disneyworld nonstop from SFO on Delta.  Hurricane Andrew was just devastating to Homestead and the Air Base there and so many had to ride thru it.  Michael was unexpected--I first saw news on it only a few days ago but was surprised by the strengthening.  One reason is the Caribbean, not having seen big storms this year, was very warm on the surface.  We have had similar issues in Arizona off of Baja, the waters there are very warm and we had a lot of rain from two hurricanes that have been near us, especially this past weekend on Saturday night, and remnants from the same hurricane are expected to come thru again this Saturday.  It is already clouding up.  Very unusual for us to have one tropical system move thru, not to mention two, and on Saturday we had Tropical Storm force winds move thru in addition to six hours of lightning within two miles of my home, some less than 1/4 a mile away, and heavy rain and street flooding.  Our windstorm in 96 was the closest thing we ever had to a hurricane--rotating mesocyclones are very dangerous and can spawn tornadic winds.

In California on a clear night I drove thru the worst windstorm in my life, from St. Helena to Napa, in winds exceeding 75 mph.  Trees fell down on Silverado Trail, my route home, and I had to drive with caution, as debris from the trees still standing pelted my car and as I had to swerve around debris in the roadway.  I was relieved when I got past the heavily forested section to the more open section, then I made my way across to Highway 29 and made it safely home.

But the worst weather I ever drove in was a blizzard that hit Tahoe.  I worked in Stateline Nevada at Harrahs but lived in Minden-Gardnerville way down in the Carson Valley below.  I chose to take Highway 50 out of the way to 395 since it was four lanes and I considered it safer.  But driving home there were no lanes, just snow, so I had to use the snow markers to navigate and with the whiteout conditions, could not see in front of me.  I had, luckily, studded snow tires and I was one of only a few still driving, until I descended below the worst of it some 3000 feet into the Carson Valley, but we still had heavy snow and my little Nissan Wagon had to plow thru some three foot snow drifts to make it home.  But by then I was a seasoned snow driver and I just took it easy on the gas, made it thru, and made it home to my nicely covered carport.

Worst winds I ever flew in are hard to judge, I still think my puddle jumper flight into Philly was the worst feeling but a confident captain and co pilot made me feel OK.  My storm into JFK in 1977 was the worst continuous turbulence I had ever felt, and the passengers could only go "Ohhhh" during the severe drops, somewhere over PA, inbound from SFO.  Once we descended we were clear of the worst but then flying outbound to Munich, I had to takeoff thru the same storm but the turbulence was night quite as bad as the pilot ascended rapidly.  But our full DC8-63 used up every inch of the runway and our pilot told us we were the last out, they closed the airport right after we left.

I was waiting to take off from Baltimore once when we were put on a gate hold.  I was upgraded to first class since my flight out of Reagan was cancelled and I politely agreed to US Airways to let them take me by Taxi to Baltimore.  So they said--"you are so nice, we are flying you home first class" much to the anger of the yelling customers dissing US Airways for weather delays.  In Baltimore we waited on the ground for about 45 minutes while a horrific thunderstorm and broad front swept thru, the 737-400 was shaking on the ground.  But it swept thru, and off I was, non stop to SFO in First Class.  My colleagues heard about the upgrade and were jealous, we all worked for an office in Gaithersburg MD and would usually fly out of Dulles or Reagan.  Baltimore became my favorite DC area airport and I last used in in 2008 for an assignment another employer, JDA Software, the retail giant, had me do.

Out of Chicago we also had to clear weather, but instead of a Gate Hold our westbound flight to Phoenix took off due North, up to Green Bay, to climb high enough to clear the incoming front of thunderstorms.  The pilot kept us informed all the way, good chap.

The most beautiful storm memory I ever had was flying home from JFK to SFO in 1980.  About 75 nm to our North was a band of thunderstorms we flew by for nearly an hour, and watching the lightning was the most beautiful aviation sight I had ever seen.  It seemed like the clouds talked to each other, one would light up then the next and the next for 10-20 NM.  It was heavenly and still the most beautiful think I have ever seen in the skies above.

John

Edited October 11, 2018 by Cactus521