Mother Nature can take on some ornery appearances across
America this time of year – even here in Wyoming.
Although tornadoes
are rare in the Cowboy State, dust devils and waterspouts are quite common.
Recently an
amazing image of a waterspout was photographed by weather spotter Kathy Milton
Raper along the Green River Lakes in Sublette County at 7,782 feet above sea
level.
The National
Weather Service staff went to the archives and was unable to ever ascertain a
report of anything like this at this elevation in the history of recording
weather.
Raper and her
husband Charlie were four-wheeling in the area when the incident happened.
Also in the
area were Amy Hemenway and her three daughters. She also took photos of the
waterspout and, like the Rapers, endured a hailstorm with stones the size of coins.
Kathy was quoted on Pinedale Online that even though they were wearing helmets,
heavy gloves and heavy jackets, the bombardment “hurt.”
Raper further
stated: “On May 31, it started hailing hard. We parked in the trees on the bench
above The Bend trying to avoid the hail. Then we spotted this waterspout in the
sky. When we first saw the funnel it was down the river towards Dollar Lake. We
could see water being sucked up out of the lake and then red dirt flying. We
watched the funnel move directly above us.”
More info can
be found on National Weather Service web sites or on Pinedale Online.
Just north of
that area in the heart of booming Jackson, folks have been dealing with another
act that might have been caused by Mother Nature or perhaps with an assist from
developers.
A landslide
threatened homes, apartments and businesses back in April. One home was split
in half by the sloughing off of a massive amount of dirt.
Estimates for
the repair range from $8 million to $30 million, which would be daunting for
most communities in Wyoming, but probably not for Jackson, which boasts the
highest home prices in the country.
When the slide
first started, it was hoped it was just a little slip. But on April 9, the town
evacuated residents of more than 40 homes and apartment units. On April 17, the slide made national news
when big chunks of land peeled off from the near 100-foot hillside.
The fact that
over 50 people were killed in a massive landslide just a month earlier in Oso,
WA gave everyone involved the jitters.
Best story to
come out of the slide was by Jackson Hole
News and Guide reporter Cindy Carcamo who wrote:
“Just a few
years after Thomas Ralston moved to town, a chimney fire burned down his home.
Last month he was driving when a 3,000-pound boulder fell from a mountain onto
the roof of his brand-new truck.
“So when police
visited his condo to tell him he had an hour to evacuate because a landslide
was threatening the building, he responded the only way he could. He sort of laughed.”
She quoted him
as saying: “What are you going to do? That’s part of the game when you move to
a place like this. Things like this happen. We accept that. We’re at 6,000 feet
in the middle of the Rockies. That’s why we live here. We don’t wallow in
self-pity.”
Folks in
Cheyenne were clobbered by a monster hailstorm in recent weeks that knocked out
windows and ruined roofs. I am sure it brought back memories of 29 years ago on
Aug. 3 when a record rain fell on that city, causing flooding and killing 12
people.
Some six
inches of rain fell in less than four hours, which sent five-foot walls of
water surging through the capitol city. Several of the victims were trapped in
basements where they were hiding from potential tornadoes.
That storm
struck at nightfall with lots of lightning which caused some fires plus two
inches of hail that piled into drifts six feet high, according to media reports.
Then-mayor Don
Erickson denied that it was a 100-year flood event. “Cheyenne should not have
another one of these for 2,000 years.”
One of the
heroes of that day, according to news reports, was Robert van Alyne Jr., 33,
who tied himself to a utility pole so he could free three people from a car.
The rope broke after he rescued two of them and he ended up drowning along with
the third person, a young girl, that he was trying to rescue.
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