Strange occurrence in Idaho Falls (Teton: insurance, houses, tornadoes)

[banjomike]

There was a sudden and very strong low pressure front that formed over southern Idaho last Saturday in the late afternoon.

It came roaring in from the Pacific coast and briefly formed a funnel cloud, but the pressure gradient was so strong the front went upward and loaded up with moisture, then fell back to earth and cut through Idaho Falls like a knife, dropping a huge hailstorm with hailstones the size of quarters or larger.

The storm only lasted for 15 minutes at the most, but the front was very narrow. All the big hail landed in the city limits, and in just scattered spots. Just 11 miles eastward, the storm turned into mostly wind, and dropped what little hail that remained.

While it lasted, it was ferocious! There was a lot of lightning jumping from cloud to cloud and constant thunderclaps that masked by the noise of the hail hitting the ground and everything on it.

There were over 200 cars, including mine, that were badly dimpled by the hailstones. The siding on some houses was torn up by the hail, and the hail punched holes in hollow vinyl fence boards. I have old cedar board fencing around my back yard, and the hailstones hit the fence with such force they popped off bits of the old oxidized wood, revealing the new wood underneath.
My fence now looks like it was splattered with light tan paint. I've never seen anything like this before.

But the strangest of all were 50 dead snow geese that fell from the sky and dropped all over a local Fred Meyer parking lot.

Apparently, the flock was caught high up by the front and blown straight up into the charged electric lightning field that was at the top of the storm and were all electrocuted!

Fish & Game have no idea if there were any survivors in the flock, and don't know for sure if the lightning was the certain cause of their deaths, but many of the geese's abdomens exploded, a sign of severe electric shock.

The snow geese are migrating right now, and they typically fly very high when approaching a storm. This storm must have caught the flock by surprise, and they were all gone in the wink of an eye.

I've lived here a very long time, and this is the first instance of this I've ever known. A truly rare event.

The big front seems to have stalled out here now. It's been raining all day, and has rained off and on ever since the big storm blew itself out over the Tetons later in the evening.

[North99]

BanjoMike - you are a treasure chest of very interesting and good information!! That's an amazing and violent storm to behave that way.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by North99

BanjoMike - you are a treasure chest of very interesting and good information!! That's an amazing and violent storm to behave that way.

I've heard of hailstorms like that in Colorado before, but this was the first I've ever experienced.

My dog was caught outside in it for a few seconds. When I opened the deck door to let him in, hailstones blew all over my living room. It wasn't falling down- it was shooting sideways, like buckshot.

When it was over, the ground was white, as if a snowstorm had passed through. The hail was so thick it took 2 days to melt off in the shade.

There were so many damaged cars I decided to wait until Monday before calling my insurance company. The dimple damage is going to keep every body shop in the county busy for a month or more. One entire side of my new car is dimpled from front to rear in random spots, but they can all be pulled out w/ no big repair needed.

I decided to wait until the rush was over. I know a dozen body-shop guys, so I'm waiting until they'll be able to take all the time they need to fix my car.

The electrocuted geese was a truly weird event. I don't think I'll live long enough to ever see that happen again, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff here.

[TerraDown]

Wow, what that must have been like to experience BanjoMike. Thanks for posting this. The geese are truly weird. I feel so bad for them, what a horrible way to die.
Reminds me of the raining toads in (Arkansas I believe?) many years ago.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by TerraDown

Wow, what that must have been like to experience BanjoMike. Thanks for posting this. The geese are truly weird. I feel so bad for them, what a horrible way to die.
Reminds me of the raining toads in (Arkansas I believe?) many years ago.

I don't think the geese suffered. From what I gather, they were so suddenly blown into the electrical field they all died in just a few seconds or less. One second, they were safe, above the storm, and the boom! they all died.

My dog wasn't out in the storm for more than 15 seconds. I was watching the storm form from my living room. It overlooks my back yard, and I was watching the sky turn yellow, a sign of a bad storm approaching. He was inside just as the big hail began.

We were both hit by it- he got it in the butt, and I got it in the face, but nither of us were struck by a big hailstone, luckily. I picked up one from the carpet that was the size of an 80 caliber grapeshot and gave it to him to crunch up.

Spring storms like this can get weird up high, when big wind is pushed ahead of a storm front, far above earth's surface.

Back around 1985, I was out driving in the county one clear night, coming back to town, and saw some electrical disturbance developing in one huge cloud that formed way, way up.

I pulled off and watched the cloud for about 30 minutes. It was close to midnight.

Lightning was flashing in and out of the cloud and within it. It was like watching a huge basket full of electrical snakes, writhing and fighting it out with each other, ducking in and out of the cloud, looking for somewhere to escape.
With light bulbs flashing off and on around the lightning snakes.

In an otherwise quiet and peaceful spring night. There was no wind, no rain, and not even a lot of noise. There were a few dull booms coming from the cloud, but none of the snaps and bangs a lightning strike on the ground makes.

It was one of the most sullen, ominous, awe-inspiring, and amazing spectacles I've ever seen. It was like God was saying "Watch this. Watch what I can do. See my power." to me personally.

When it ended, all the frogs and birds began to sing. At midnight. Just for a minute or two. It was as if they were all checking to see if everyone was OK.

No one I know ever saw it. Just me.

[TerraDown]

I also love watching the clouds, and the formation of storms. We get some very strange weather down here in Florida too. Yes, a yellow sky is a warning of things about to happen.
Down here, I see a lot of clouds of late (during our rainy season) that 'tails' develop and swirl about, which can turn into tornadoes. I never saw these kinds of clouds about 10 years back, so I do think the weather is changing, here anyway.
When I lived out west I also saw other types of weather form. Mini dust storms, dust devils, and the heavy clouds on the west side of the mountains dumping rain that created dangerous mudslides.

Fascinating that you observed the frogs and birds singing after the abatement of the storm. Yes, Mother Nature and her 6th sense animals still amaze me, and it is worth paying attention to all that they can teach.

Glad you and the pup made it out of the storm safely.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by TerraDown

I also love watching the clouds, and the formation of storms. We get some very strange weather down here in Florida too. Yes, a yellow sky is a warning of things about to happen.
Down here, I see a lot of clouds of late (during our rainy season) that 'tails' develop and swirl about, which can turn into tornadoes. I never saw these kinds of clouds about 10 years back, so I do think the weather is changing, here anyway.
When I lived out west I also saw other types of weather form. Mini dust storms, dust devils, and the heavy clouds on the west side of the mountains dumping rain that created dangerous mudslides.

Fascinating that you observed the frogs and birds singing after the abatement of the storm. Yes, Mother Nature and her 6th sense animals still amaze me, and it is worth paying attention to all that they can teach.

Glad you and the pup made it out of the storm safely.

Yup. Florida gets more spectacular sky events than Idaho, for sure! We get dust devils and that stuff you mentioned, but none of it is as cool as Florida when Mother Nature wants to show off a little.

I'm a Navy vet. The beauty of cumulus sea clouds offshore at sunset is very hard to beat, even with our sunsets. They're just the best there is, off Florida's coasts. If I wasn't on watch, I loved to get a cup of coffee and go to the rail to watch the sun set in the keys, just out in the open waters. Lots of memories, still, for me, and it's been years ago.

Lefty was already at the door by the time I got there, and it only took about 2 jumps for me to reach it.

If I had moved just a couple of seconds earlier, though, we both would have missed the blast of hail. Since neither of us got hurt by the hail, I thought it was pretty cool. I've never seen hail bouncing around my living room before. Lefty likes to munch ice cubes, so he had a good time with the hailstones on the carpet.