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General discussion

Gust Front

Mar 14, 2004 5:54AM PST

I had never heard of a "Gust Front" until last week, but we apparently experienced one last Sunday. It was a sudden major wind storm that nobody predicted. The technical description is available at March 07, 2004 High Wind Event, but it includes more information than most of us want to know. A brief description of the power outages is at WXII12.com - Weather - Power Being Restored Across North Carolina. Those links don't even begin to describe what happened, but I did not find anything more evocative on a quick search.

Last Sunday we had mild weather almost all day, up until about sunset. Then the storm came up extremely quickly. I was getting ready to pick the boys up at church when I thought I heard thunder, but the roar was continuous rather than brief. Outside the wind was strong enough that it was hard to control the car on the road. I think the unofficial reports in our area were 60-70 mph. It was physically difficult to walk in the wind even with partial protection from the house. Anything that wasn't tied down was in motion. There were tree limbs all over the roads.

The good news is that we did not lose power at the house, but a lot of the area did lose power. When the wind blew the trash cans down the road one of the lids didn't stay latched, but thankfully that is the only thing we lost. One of my nurses lost 2 cars and part of the roof of her house when a tree from a neighbor's yard fell down from the wind.

I've never been through a full strength hurricane, and I hope that this is the closest I ever come. Knowing how much damage the wind did around here, it is hard for me to imagine why anybody would ever voluntarily try to 'ride out' a hurricane with even stronger winds complicated by heavy rain and (on the coast) the storm surge.

Discussion is locked

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NT - We call these straight-line winds (as opposed to tornados)
Mar 14, 2004 12:13PM PST

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Re: Gust Front
Mar 14, 2004 12:28PM PST

Hi, Dr. Bill.

If you do a web search, look under "straight line winds."

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

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Re:Gust Front
Mar 14, 2004 1:06PM PST

Sometime in early 90's don't remember year, in March or April, we had about 24 hours of 45 to 60 mph winds with higher scattered gusts.

That wasn't unexpected though, that was a case of a huge high pressure to the NE and a very low center to the south. But I don't think anyone expected it to be as bad as it was for those 24+ hours. I actually had a section of mobile home side come off but it was trapped under the trailer against the wheels.

The storm you talking about, I went to work at 10 PM, and it wasn't bad here yet. I came home the next morning, about 6:30, and the power was off. It came back on about 8. Based on how much of a taped program was taped before it ended in the middle, power went off about 10:15.

Glad it wasn't worse here, but it was bad all over the east coast.

RogerNC

click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

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Sounds like what hit Baltimore the day before, capsizing that boat in the harbor.[nt]
Mar 14, 2004 2:03PM PST

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