Strange Weather Phenomenon

[Windguy]

This is just to get people talking about weather patterns they have seen or are quite famous because they are totally unexplainable. One such weird weather pattern is the Maitland Show. The Maitland Show is an agricultural show that use to be the second largest in the state of NSW in Australia in the 60's and 70's. It became quite famous as it always rained when the show was on. In the 90's they even changed the dates it was on from October to February just to get away from the rain. So far as my memory can tell, it has never failed to rain. Even some people from Sydney (3hr drive) even know of it saying it is a "definite drought breaker, that show".

Another one may have a slight scientific backing, where there is a few places with giant coal pads (3 to 4 sq kms each) the mines and exporters use. Unless there is heavy rain, then most rainfall doesn't occur in the immediate areas around such coal pads. I've noticed a couple of times where the cloud coverage just stops in the sky above the coverage area. One possible reason is the heat radiating from the coal pads causing convection currents minimising rainfall over those areas. It would be interesting to see if the actual rainfall is less above any large black objects such as car parks and so on.

Does anybody else have any strange weather phenomena likely to be not explained by science?

[Windguy]

I've heard of one phenomena of late, tell tale signs a big storm is brewing (i.e. flooding) a week before the storms. One that was suggested was a lightning show. Anything similar has occured in your neck of the woods?

[treekiller]

Thunder snowstorms are awesome. I was in Denver Colorado about 3 weeks ago. The snow was coming down hard, the sky was pinkish from reflected city lights, white lighting was flashing, and thunder booming. The lightning/thunder only lasted about 20 minutes. I have seen this weather phenomenon one other time, 60 miles north of Denver in the early 1980s.

[forfi]

Cheltenham Races-Saint Patrick's Day-Snow

[forfi]

What are the odds? should we invest the forum funds with William Hills?

[Wobs]

We recently got snow that had formed from fog. The weatherman (T**T!)on the local news was very excited, saying it wasn't snow, it was crystalised ice flakes falling to the ground!

He called it "rime", but it was in my smegging eyes while I was biking to work, so the experience was filed under "snow" in my mind. It was falling just like snow, and was white, so do the maths.

[spadlet]

Rime is a white or milky and opaque granular deposit of ice formed by the rapid freezing of supercooled water drops as they impinge upon an cold exposed object.

from Weather Facts: Rime - Weather UK - weatheronline.co.uk

I'm not sure that it's rime when it's travelling through the air

[Windguy]

Here is another strange one. Australia had 7 years of drought before this last wet season. A few weeks into the wet season a fog descended on a Victorian country town. It wasn't fog though, it was spiders web with millions upon millions of baby spiders floating through the air.

Supposebly spider eggs don't hatch during droughts, they hatch during the first signs of rain. I think I'll avoid that town for a fair while, I think.

[forfi]

We get floating baby spiders most years.Just a while back my neighbour could not deal with the corn stubble in his field and we had a heavy hatch of spiders one evening.Next morning there was a 40 acre field of silk,one of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen.Photie available if interested but the real thing was magic

[spadlet]

Originally Posted by forfi

Photie available if interested

I vote for a photie