Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with storm

Tree maintenance?

cjemmott — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:05:05 -0800

The trees at my house lost a dozen or so large branches in the earliest snow on record in central PA. Do all of the branches falling signify a problem with the trees? Do I need to do anything to help the trees recover? Because the leaves had not fallen yet, this was a common problem in the area. This has left a number of places where the branch remaining on the tree is ragged and split. Is this a problem? Do I need to do something about it?

If it matters, there are several types of trees in the yard, but the problem is with the sugar maples, which are abut 70 feet tall and 30 years old. A picture can be seen here.

More generally, do I need to do anything for my trees? Mostly I just rake their leaves in the fall and enjoy their shade in the summer. Is there anything I can do to make them more healthy? Or to protect the house?

window fan + lightning storm - will sparks fly?

MesoFilter — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:48:31 -0800

Is it okay to use a window fan during a thunderstorm? I leave my window fans running all the time, even during thunderstorms. Frequently I'm not home and not even really aware that a storm will be coming, or it happens while I'm sleeping.

I'm on the 6h floor of a 6 story apartment building. Do I have anything to worry about with window fans & thunder storms?

There is a storm outside! Can I shower?

boulder20something — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:55:45 -0800

Am I safe showering during a thunder and lightening storm? My mom always scared me growing up, telling us no showers during a thunderstorm. She also kept us off the land lines. Did she really think we could get electrocuted in our bathtub or by talking on the phone? Needless to say, the neurosis has stuck with me now that I am an adult and I want to make sure my mom was just crazy.

Help a friend find a book she loved as younger person.

Syntoad — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:38:42 -0800

Trying to find a friend find a book she remembers reading as a child, fantasy genre, wizards, kids with magic, and it was a trillogy! Better description (kinda) inside Ok, so I'm too lazy to retype it all, so I'm just cutting and pasting my chat history where she is describing the book so please excuse the scatterbrainedness. She remembers having the book in middle school so it's at least 90's old, but probably pre 80's.

============
OKAY
this book
its about a brother and sister
it a sort of fantasy world, knights, magic, temptresses, oceans, sea, sacrfice
anyways
the brother has an affinity with fire, and the girl has an affinity for dream seeing or something to that effect
anyways they dont know this in the beginning
like because they are orphaned i think they get shipped off across the sea?
and on board the ship, the brother meets this white/silver haired lady who is the main evil person(from what i recall)
and she convinces him to lose his virginity to her and thus became her slave
and then the sister, like.. either figures out what is happening or she gets in trouble?
and there is this storm
and the brother and sister wash ashore this island
where they meet this grizzled old mage
after they explore the island
like they find him sitting in a meadow on a stump
and he speaks to the sister in her mind
and the brother gets jealous that he doesnt have the ability to speak mind to mind
and gets across the notion that he wants the power to protect himself and his sister
and like. the mage begins to teach them
but halfway through the brother's training the brother is like "DUDE I got this I"M SO AWESOME"
well the brother is like "Yeah I can control my powers im amazing and soooo powerful!"
and he leaves the island to go to the white haired lady
and becomes evil
the series ends with him catching himself on fire and destroying this forest and himself in order to destroy and evil army and save the kingdom from descrutction
but the sister always has hope in him and keeps trying to break through the evil the temptress bespelled him into
but the old dude was very important to the story, and i think he died when he finished training the sister
and she ends up i think advising the king? or something like that
i think the brother and sister's uncle may have tried to sell them as slaves and that may have been why they were on the boat at sea
but there was a lightning storm and it threw them off the boat maybe

Take the iPhone or Get a Blackberry Storm?

billysumday — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 05:40:57 -0800

Gift receiving etiquette: accept the iPhone that was promised me or go rogue and get a Blackberry Storm? Related: is the Blackberry really better? A few months ago I ended a job and moved with my fiance to Pennsylvania. My former coworkers pooled money and got me an iPhone. The only problem was, my contract didn't run out until Dec. 13 so I've been waiting to "cash in" my gift. I loooove iPhones but I've been on Verizon for 6 years and like them, and have many friends/family who can call me for free because we all have Verizon. Of course, I also have a few friends on ATT now because of their iPhones. But now that the new Blackberry Storm is out, I'm intrigued, and thinking of getting one of those instead.

First of all, is it bad etiquette to say, "hey, I'm going with the new Blackberry instead!" The price is equivalent and so is the "gist" of the gift. My one friend is a real Apple guy and so he'll be disappointed, I think, but not mad. Second of all, is the new Blackberry really that good? I've only ever played around with an iPhone, but I love it. Last night I played around with a Storm for the first time, and it seemed fine. There are some features that I like better on the iPhone - the finger stretching/minimizing features, the graphics and buttons. But the Storm seems pretty much the same, and like I said, I actually like Verizon. If I could get an iPhone and stay with Verizon it'd be a no-brainer. Another question: do I lose my phone number if I got to AT&T from Verizon? Last question: are iPhones reliable/durable? I've heard some bad stories about the iPhone, but mostly in the context of pitches for the Storm.

Thanks, all-wise AskMe!

Storm und Dareng

Toekneesan — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:46:05 -0800

Considering a new phone and because of a need for reliable rural service and an attractive family plan shared with our extended family, we're considering Verizon and either the Dare or the Storm. The difference in data plans is $20—$30 for the Storm, $10 for the Dare. Is the Storm and the Blackberry service worth it? Anyone with a Dare or a Storm have regrets or accolades?

There's ectoplasm in my front yard!

pjern — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:47:15 -0800

What do you suppose caused this effect? I was taking time exposures during a storm tonight, trying to get some lightning shots, and this very weird effect appeared in exactly one frame out of perhaps 200. I was thinking it might be distant lightning behind the clouds, but notice the red color sort of seems to obscure part of the eaves of the yellow house across the street. Salient data: I was shooting in an easterly direction from inside my garage (away from the city and all the horrible orange streetlights- I live on the very edge of the city) into a basically dark section of sky. The garage lights were out. Other shots where the clouds were lit internally by lightning showed a more normal purplish-blue color. The color has not been enhanced in any way- that's exactly how the Nikon View software rendered it. I did use Photoshop, but only to clone out a sensorbunny.

Any ideas?

San Francisco Storms

mto — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:39:38 -0800

Should I be scared of these 3 big storms about to slam into San Francisco? The news has been going on and on about these storms. The city is giving away sandbags. They're mentioning hurricane force winds. It's freaking me out. How scared should I be? You can see about where I live in my user profile.

I bought a bunch of food I can make w/ my camping stove and some extra water. Should I be doing anything more to prepare? Is my neighborhood likely to flood? (Bernal Heights)?

Also, and most importantly, how likely are these storms to produce a tornado? I hate tornados, I left the midwest thinking I'd never have to worry about another tornado again.

bum bum bum bah da bum bum...

willie11 — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:27:36 -0800

Help a migraine sufferer! My girlfriend’s migraines are apparently set off by storm systems and their associated low-pressure fronts. Does anyone have experience with this? She and I are fairly certain that her migraines are in some way shape or form associated with storms. She can generally feel them coming in directly before the sky changes and will come down with debilitating headaches during 4/5 storms.

1) Any way to detect pressure changes in advance? Perhaps some sort of meteorological computer alert?
2) Is there anywhere, besides the desert that doesn’t have low pressure? We're considering moving, and escaping her migraines would be great.

Hurricane tracking reliability.

The Straightener — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:14:21 -0800

Has anyone tracked the historical accuracy of different types of hurricane trajectory prediction models? Each hurricane season I'm fascinated by storm plots like this. I understand that the different colors and their corresponding stock-tickerish names stand for the different sources of hurrican path predictions, but does anyone track the outcomes of hurricane paths to see if any one of these models is more often right than others?

"It's god banging on the piano keys..."

Solomon — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 04:57:44 -0800

Lightning. Why does it always go to ground? I had to drive through a storm a few days ago, complete with heavy rain, thunder and lightning strikes. I got to thinking - why does lightning (or electricity) always seek the earth? Why doesn't lightning stay in the cloud? Why does it have to "go somewhere"? Why don't I ever see lightning damage? I figure that all that energy striking a tree has to do it some damage, but compared to the amount of lightning storms I've seen, I've only ever seen one potentially lightning damaged tree.

I realise that I should probably have paid more attention in physics class at school, but it's a bit late for that now. So I'm turning the AskMeFi to educate me instead.

Please be warned that I never was able to grasp much of physics, so bonus points are available to anyone who can explain it in simple terms. :)

Can I recover damages after a power surge?

monkeystronghold — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 13:16:59 -0800

power surge damage: last night something went wacko on my neighborhood power grid, and stuff started popping and blowing up and burning (in 6-8 other houses as well). We shut off all of the breakers as quick as we could, but when we woke up this morning lots of stuff was destroyed. Will anyone pay for the damage? [MI] It's a rental duplex. The other tenant and nearby neighbors have damage as well. I have no renters insurance (because I am a buffoon). Should the electric company pay for it? My landlord? Me? Is it even worth talking to anyone?

Hurricane Spawn

elpapacito — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 16:58:31 -0800

The son of Hurricane Ivan ?. Apparently the forces which generated Ivan respawned a tropical storm near Texas. To mefi meteoreologist, is this a first time event or there's some precedent ?