On Tuesday 11 October 2016 03:49:03 Erik Christiansen wrote: > On 10.10.16 09:58, Gene Heskett wrote: > > Where are you that the weather took such a serious swipe at you? > > In the Dandenong ranges, at an altitude of 600', on the outskirts of > Melbourne, Victoria. (38°S)
So you are almost exactly as far south as I am north. > The 120 km/h winds are not so common here; > the last time I experienced them was 27 years ago, when a falling 4' > diameter tree hit a 40' Blackwwood halfway up, hurling the top half > 60' through the air to land on my house slab, going through where the > balcony and gable end now stand. But there does seem to be a bit more > energy in the atmosphere now than before - several high wind days > during the ten just spent out on the farm (~250 km eastward) rattled > the house as it's rarely been buffeted in 52 years - but consistently > hard for days longer. More manifestation of global warming I suspect. :( > I think there must have been a bit of dryrot in the big Redgums which > snapped off here. Even a couple of gusts timed to resonance with the > tree's whippiness oughtn't be able to snap a 1m diameter - even though > a lot of length each side of the snap, plus a big crown, makes for > tens of tons flailing back and forth 10m or more at the top. In 2010, we had a big blow called a direcho come thru here, peak winds recorded a block down the street at 120 mph. Took all the big pines down, snapping off 40 yo 40 footers about 8 feet up in the air, or uprooting them. Took just 4 or 5 minutes according to the wife, who instead of hitting the basement to ride it out, stood in the front door watching the only tree that withstood it whipping back and forth about 40 feet at its 50 foot top. This was a pin oak. Some upwind lower branches hung up in a picket fence about 10 feet upwind were damaged but has since recovered. At the time that 50 footer was perhaps 20" thick 3 feet up, pushing 30" now. I was, at the time, listening to a pounding rain on the roof of a Lowes indoor lumber yard store about 17 miles east in Buchanon WV, so loud that talking to a clerk 2 feet away had us both yelling. I boogied past the register and headed home as soon as it showed signs of letting up. A mess as I was at times driving upwind of that blows path, with downed trees being the major landscape decorations. No major structural damage to the house but lost 4 big pines, part of the shingles, some siding & guttering on the back, and nearly all the board fencing. So I had much of the rest of the summer rebuilding all that. I was instructed, in the middle of the cleanup activities, to build a circular bench around that tree so folks could sit in its shade, and a fridge strapped to the tree was supposed to be stocked with an assortment of beers & cold tea's. Never happened of course as I wanted a cover charge. ;D Just neighborly ribbing, this is and has been the soon to be 27 years I've been here, a good, everybody knows everybody neighborhood. Since the place is paid off for about 15 years now, I'll ride it out till the rapture. Thanks Erik. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, SlashDot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
