If you ever get the chance to witness bad weather from a panoramic window on the 34th floor of a hotel, don't turn it down. I am a fan of bad weather, especially when I can do the viewing from a safe location.
I'm in Boston for a seminar (my better half is a speaker), and happened to be in our room when this storm hit. The room is on the corner, with windows facing west towards the Charles and Fenway Park, and south towards the Hancock building. If the windows could be opened I would be able to run and leap onto the Boston Public Library, like Spiderman.
Coming out the west, the storm cell reduced visibility from 2-3 miles to about 300 feet in a matter of 60 seconds or so. The hail appeared to be about a half-inch wide, and lasted a minute or so. There were a few lightning strikes mixed in for good measure.
Fifteen minutes later, the Sun popped out. The lights came on at Fenway, and it looks like the Red Sox game is on for tonight, not that I'm going.
We have dinner plans with friends instead...and the weather looks cooperative.
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7 comments:
Sounds exciting!
Oh, it was!
I'm thankful that I live in the Northeast where REALLY bad weather is rare...we get the occasional hurricane or tornado watch but they pale in comarison to those in the Midwest and the South.
I've never had such a cool vantage point before.
I had an interesting weather experience involving witnessing amazing meteorological events from a hotel window in a Sox town with a Hancock building.
On 9/11/00, one year before the fateful day, I was in Chicago for work and my coworker & I had come back from a White Sox game in a torrential downpour. We were in our room looking south towards the Sears Tower. We both saw a huge lightning bolt hit the antenna/lightning rod at the top of the tower. As we watched the vaporized mist blow away in the wind, a second bolt hit.
It was an incredible sight made even more amazing in hindsight a year later due to the potentially prophetic component - 2 strikes on a huge skyscraper in a major US city on 9/11. Too bad I couldn't see the significance and warn someone.
I actually caught some of that hail from the 24th floor - less view, but the window opens. Not enough to chill a cocktail, but enough to make a tiny little snowman.
Spectacular storm! Watching the river disappear, the sheets of rain, and the clearing was quite memorable.
Not sure if I put this out there before but now that you're being overrun by repugs...
www.imvotingrepublican.com
db,
I struggled to open the window, but to no avail.
Once, several years ago, when I was teaching high school chemistry, it hailed and I handed out beakers for the students to collect the hail with. We were able to fashion several small mushy snowballs.
hi mick,
thanks, and yes...I saw that link earlier from another lefty site, Crooks and Liars, perhaps...
cute.
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