I can not remember the same frequency of serious storms

[salin]

going through Indiana as have been through in the past four weeks. Seems like it has been 1 to 2 potentially very serious stomrs ('tornadic') each week. Granted I was out of the state during most of the nineties...

Perhaps it is media hyped (go off network shows for coverage for ratings - playing off folks fears) - and while this is very possible - my memory is that hail storms were pretty rare... now, at least in Indy, they are becoming a regular occurrence... with bigger and bigger hail.

Is it just me? Or do others think that this weather is getting more volatie?

Couple this weather that seems much more increasingly extreme each year - and pop media (such as Time) devoting serious print coverage to issues like Global Warning... and one would think that many non-political folks, or moderate folks would start questioning the 'science doesn't matter' spin from the WH. More reasons, perhaps, to get folks to start questioning various spin coming at them - and to begin the process of working through the cognitive dissonance required to continue to support todays GOP.

[salin]

1. I posted this before having the house being pelted by serious hale.

Hale was very rare in the seventies. I had to go "explore" (as a kid) after the very few times there was a hale storm to see the hale stones. In my memory it happened only once every several years.

This year I have seen hale at least four times.

Just a hair south of down town (fountain square) - and the house was pelted for about 15 minutes. I have no memory of such and event.

[Sadie5]

2. Can't remember hail either

Maybe twice or so in the past five years. The storms do seem to have increased in strength. The wind was terrible in Avon and the rain came down in buckets.

[salin]

3. I am drinking some strong coffee this morning...

before going out to survey the damage. Hail. See, read and referred to it so unfrequently that I didn't even know how to spell the word *that's my excuse and I am sticking with it*

[Voltaire]

9. I'm just a little bit south of you

in Garfield Park and it sounded like someone was standing outside with a big ass pellet gun for about 15 - 20 minutes. You're right, the weather in the last THREE years has gotten progressively worse. I am in the habit now of just getting stuff for the basement, since my wife and the animals and I spend at least a couple of days a week down there.

[salin]

11. 'a couple of nights a week'

isn't that the sad, current truth. And exceptionally more frequent than in the past.

[DemonGoddess]

4. gotta remember that weather,

like so many other things, is cyclicle. The whole area has gone through a relatively calm span for about 30 years or so, if you think about it. ;)

[salin]

5. going back 30 years... granted I was young, but I recall that

hail was very, very rare. We kids would get excited and go run out to pick up the very rare hailstones.

I also remember going down to the basement during tornado watches and warnings. We did it several times (five?) a year - flashlights, radios and candles. But now it has been at least five times in three or four weeks. You could be right about cycles, but it would seem that this cycle is more extreme.

Granted I am working data that is only based on my recollections of being a kid.

[thinkingwoman]

6. I'm 40 and my parents are in their 60s

My family ancestors helped settle southern Indiana and have lived there for generations. No one alive can remember weather like this (this intensity coupled with this frequency).

Cyclical my ass (no offense to the poster upthread intended). This is climate change.

[salin]

7. I am hearing more mumbles.... I think the weather is catching

more and more folks' attention. I didn't see TIME magazines write up on Climate Change - but I have heard discussion of it as well. Maybe there will finally develop so much of a groundswell of public opinion to DO SOMETHING - that we will finally have a serious reorganization of our national priorities. Well, one can always hope...

[thinkingwoman]

8. I'm hoping right along with you. nt

[DemonGoddess]

10. my mil is in her 70's and remembers weather like this from

years ago. She's always lived in this area...

Of course, I grew up in a different area, just outside of Chicago, but also remember alot of severe weather up until I was around 13/14, and I'm 44 now ;)

[salin]

12. I am just a few years younger...

and have no recollection of the frequency of such weather - but will ask older residents for confirmation. We are in the central and central/southern part of the state - whether or not that makes a difference.

[DemonGoddess]

13. I also happen to think that while things are cycling, that there

are OTHER factors at play here as well, which is making weather kind of odd in many places if you think about it.

Like the last winter I spent in California (not this past, but the one before it) where we had record breaking rainfall and it wasn't even an El Nino condition.

[thinkingwoman]

14. it's not the type of weather

that's odd. Indiana always has severe storms in the spring and summer. It's the frequency coupled with the intensity of this type of weather that is odd. When even the meteorologists admit it's strange, it's strange.

[BiggJawn]

15. I remember weather like this 40 years ago.

Hail was almost common-place. And don't forget the tornadoes of Palm Sunday, 1963.

60 years ago, the US Navy lost almost all their huge airships because of storm action.
The Shenandoa was lost in Ohio in a storm, the Akron in the Atlantic, and the Macon in the Pacific.
The Los Angeles was scrapped.
The ferocity of american storms made the dirigable unsuited for service on this continent.

Having said that, I don't remember a season for strong storms like this in many decades.

[thinkingwoman]

16. what part of Indiana

did you live in 40 years ago?

[BiggJawn]

17. Indianapolis.

Northwest side in a little "village" called New Augusta, to be exact.
'65-'66, I remember we'd sit in the garage with the door open and watch the hail collect on the driveway.

[thinkingwoman]

18. ahh, well that explains it

my family comes from 2 hours farther south...none of them have a memory of this severity at this frequency in more than 70 years in that location. But it's not unusual for Indy and southern Indiana to get completely different weather. Hell, sometimes it seems like they're having completely different seasons.

[BiggJawn]

19. Where I live now...

Let's see, on Palm Sunday '63, my ESSO watch the big twister that passed between Lafayette and Mulberry (you can still see where it chewed a hole in a woods just north of where her mom lives) and in 1973, the "Superoutbreak" destroyed the coutrthouse in Monticello.

But that twister tearing into the old INB tower, now that was something!

[salin]

21. I remember the severe weather of '73

went around the neighborhood with a tin can for collection for donations to help the storm struck. What I don't recall from that season is the frequency of the storms.

[salin]

20. thanks,

just barely exceeds my recollections ... going back to the late 60s/early 70s in terms of working memory. Helpful perspective, thanks.