Charlotte Weather

[Windsurfer]

On 6/1/2019 at 6:21 AM, abttown said:

^Planted 3 maples last fall, although they need a couple more years on them. 

It is noticeably cooler today!

You scoff at the idea of more trees, but there was a story in The Observer several years ago that tracked average temperatures within the city. It found that, on average, Myers Park was five degrees cooler than the rest of the city due to the foliage.

[KJHburg]

1 hour ago, Windsurfer said:

You scoff at the idea of more trees, but there was a story in The Observer several years ago that tracked average temperatures within the city. It found that, on average, Myers Park was five degrees cooler than the rest of the city due to the foliage.

My electric bills are lower at my house on with a heavily wooded backyard that blocks the summer sun than a small condo I own at the beach with no shade.  Yes trees do lower temperatures for sure.   Not to mention the CO2 they produce.   We need a tree canopy in this city and need to work to keep it up replanting when old trees fall  or die. 

[abttown]

9 hours ago, Windsurfer said:

You scoff at the idea of more trees, but there was a story in The Observer several years ago that tracked average temperatures within the city. It found that, on average, Myers Park was five degrees cooler than the rest of the city due to the foliage.

Not scoffing at all.  The trees I planted are just too small to provide much shade at this point.  No doubt trees can provide their own little microclimate when there are enough of them.  Luckily we got some rain today, so a welcome break from the dry spell!

[grodney]

We might have a high in the 60s today.  In the last 20 years, I only have record of 2 days in June with a high in the 60s......so this will be quite rare if we do stay under 70.

[tozmervo]

36 minutes ago, grodney said:

We might have a high in the 60s today.  In the last 20 years, I only have record of 2 days in June with a high in the 60s......so this will be quite rare if we do stay under 70.

All the heat is in California this week. Records falling all over the place out there.

[11 HouseBZ]

We all joke about the power lines in all the photos we take off the new developments. But seriously, this is why power lines need to be buried. Not for aesthetics, but weather. We have way too many weather events through every season not to. You can't tell me that this right here, fixing lines multiple times a year, year after year, with all the overtime and fixins is cheaper than just putting them underground. 

 

I also might be a little biased cause I've had little sleep over the last 72 hours and my wife and kids are home still without power. Guess I'll be cranking the generator when I get home in the morning.

[davidclt]

4 hours ago, 11 HouseBZ said:

. . .this is why power lines need to be buried. Not for aesthetics, but weather. We have way too many weather events through every season not to. You can't tell me that this right here, fixing lines multiple times a year, year after year, with all the overtime and fixins is cheaper than just putting them underground. 

If only Duke shareholders rate payers didn't have to foot the bill for $10,000,000,000 (that's $10 billion or $10,000 million) in coal ash cleanup, maybe they'd have the money to bury the lines. Count the peeves in that last sentence. I think burying the lines would be a capital expense. I'm not sure where fixing them when they fail is accounted for but through creative accounting and a somewhat compliant rate board, I'm confident over the long term, it's a win for Duke (heads they win, tails you lose).

[A2.]

Just remember, When life gets too hot! Banner Elk is less than a two and half hour drive away. Ain’t it amazing that we live in such a great state!

70’s in the middle of the summer !!!! Can you say awesome!

[InSouthPark]

12 hours ago, A2. said:

Just remember, When life gets too hot! Banner Elk is less than a two and half hour drive away. Ain’t it amazing that we live in such a great state!

70’s in the middle of the summer !!!! Can you say awesome!

 

I camped in Pisgah outside of Brevard at 3200' two weekends ago and needed a fire to take the chill off at night.  At 3pm, it was 70 degrees at my campsite (according to my car thermometer vs the 84 it was at Sierra Nevada just 10 miles away).   

Pisgah is just amazing in the summer.

Edited August 6, 2019 by InSouthPark

[videtur quam contuor]

Change in temperature due to elevation is 3.5-3.7º F per 1000 feet change. Sources vary but this is the standard range. This is sometimes called the "lapse rate". A 3,000 foot rise=drop in temperature of  ~11º just for altitude. Increase temperature with descent. This is with all other conditions stable.

[Cadi40]

Just curious, can anyone who lived here during Hugo tell me what it was like? Recently I’ve been really interested as it’s one of the larger weather events to strike Charlotte. 

[KJHburg]

8 hours ago, Cadi40 said:

Just curious, can anyone who lived here during Hugo tell me what it was like? Recently I’ve been really interested as it’s one of the larger weather events to strike Charlotte. 

Hmmm I did and I lived in a now demolished apartment complex in Southpark.  a tree crushed my Nissan's trunk.  THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of trees fell in Mecklenburg.  During the night it struck 30 years this Sept. I could see transformers blowing all around me.  the entire city with southpark mall proper and uptown lost power at some point. My parents in the university area were out of power for 2 weeks many people longer.   Glass blown out of then one first union aka 1 wells fargo with blinds blowing out the window.  Piles of sailboat piled up on lake norman. Gas stations and bank ATMs closed.  

https://www.wcnc.com/article/weather/hurricane-central/remembering-hurricane-hugo-charlottes-wake-up-call/275-449243465

Now when a hurricane is threatening SC coast from Charleston northward to Wilmington I prep.  Plenty of gas in my vehicles, food and cash.  Only phone that really worked were land lines. Took me about 2 months to get my trunk fixed as the repair shops were so backed up.  So if you hear old timers like me talk about it you better prepare.  To affect Charlotte like Hugo did the storm has to has such a track it comes in South Carolina and moves NW.  

[videtur quam contuor]

To my memory the hurricane made a deviation just before dark the night of arrival and powered across McCleanville  SC and headed straight for Charlotte, a most remarkable track. Systems NE and SW spun it toward us shooting through the gap. The change was abrupt and the weather people had less time to warn than expected. Many people went to bed not knowing the risk (me) and awoke early AM with everything outside the window going sideways. Trees snapping and limbs falling. Transformers exploding, wires and whole trees everywhere. In Biology books one sees the tree with a taproot down in the earth as deep as the tree is tall but in this tough Carolina clay that ain't true. The largest, oldest trees were still in full leaf and caught the full force and went over, roots and all and we saw the root went down six to eight feet, that is all. The next generation of adult trees, a bit smaller and less crown then survived, mostly, and that is how nature winnows her crop; oldest out and next tree up.

Something many forget is that the very next week there was a huge rainstorm, inches of rain and all the leaking, blue covered roofs were deluged and more damage from interior flooding from the storm. Misery abounded.

I had a 1905 house that had a standing pilot (always lit, no electrical ignition) for stove, oven and water heater so my house fared better than most. Those outside of the city with well water had no access to water without electricity for the well pump and had to leave their home. Water=civilization. Gas stations were closed due to lack of electricity for pumps so driving was limited. Lines at working gas stations were long.

It was a revelation of the meaning of the word "power". I have power. Do you have power? Powerless was what most of us felt. The ice storm of December 2002 had some similarities to Hugo.

[Nick2]

I wasn't around for Hugo but man that ice storm sucked. We didn't have power for almost THREE weeks. And I was in Columbia during the floods of 2015 caused by hurricane joaquin. Half the city was cut off from other places. More than half didn't have water and even more lost power. Not having water was new and that was awful. USC students had to use portapottys for over a week. Anytime stuff is getting crazy with weather, I prepare. 

Batteries, lights, gas, generator, nonperishables, and cash.

[KJHburg]

Run from the water and shelter from the wind.  

Hurricanes are scary but at least we have days and weeks to prepare unlike an earthquake that can happen is a split second. 

[KJHburg]

Brad Panovich posted this and it is pretty accurate if you ask me.   His annual weather forecast comes out in November I think. 

 

[lit]

On 8/25/2019 at 10:36 AM, Cadi40 said:

Just curious, can anyone who lived here during Hugo tell me what it was like? Recently I’ve been really interested as it’s one of the larger weather events to strike Charlotte. 

Since the storm was at night, there wasn’t much to see. We sat up and listened to the wind howling over the sound of the radio broadcast. They kept reminding people not to go outside during the eye of the storm and a few stations actually went down during the worst part of the storm. When we emerged the next day  it was pure insanity. Up on Independence, there was a gas station beside what is now Papa Johns that had its cover blown out into the road completely blocking the Eastbound side. 

 

There were a dozen trees down in our yard and school was canceled for 2 weeks, but most of us kids didn’t mind. We just met up every day and made sweet forts all over the neighborhood. 

 

Chainsaws were singing a song pretty much everywhere you went, all day every day. A few of our neighbors actually got injured in the cleanup efforts. A guy 2 houses down from us had a tree laying over on his roof so he walked up the trunk and started cutting. Once he had cut the top off, the trunk stood back up and catapulted him ragdoll-style down an embankment. 

[KJHburg]

Miss Dorian the hurricane did some remodeling of the Outer Banks so to speak.  Bigger inlets, overwash areas, barriers that shrunk.  Some beaches near Wilmington actually grew in size with more sand.

Before and after photos

https://www.mooresvilletribune.com/news/trending/photos-satellite-aerial-images-of-n-c-before-and-after/collection_b1b071c7-93de-5aa4-9912-e0ac29ce3d08.html#40

[KJHburg]

30 years ago I was awake all night here in Charlotte as Hurricane Hugo was hitting.  My memories are above.   Bad times for Charlotte.   Landfalled north of Charleston and barreled right into the piedmont and eye went over the Charlotte area as a Cat 1 landfilled as Cat 4.   Thank God it was moving fast that night. 

Brad Panovich tweeted out the image.

 

[KJHburg]

for those who were not around or even alive 30 years this is what Hugo's path looked like.  It was something to have a CAT 1 hurricane blow through the city of Charlotte.

 

[videtur quam contuor]

The key was the sustained wind. 75-85 mph for an hour and then another hour spinning and blowing the other direction, sustained. 

[Guest]

30 years ago I was awake all night here in Charlotte as Hurricane Hugo was hitting.  My memories are above.   Bad times for Charlotte.   Landfalled north of Charleston and barreled right into the piedmont and eye went over the Charlotte area as a Cat 1 landfilled as Cat 4.   Thank God it was moving fast that night. 

Brad Panovich tweeted out the image.

 

slept through the whole damn thing, been chasing storms ever since.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[KJHburg]

I remember driving from with my damaged Nissan Sentra across Charlotte from 3603 Colony Rd  to my parents house in the University area.  The only utility that was consistent was the landline Bell South telephone line. SouthPark and Uptown did not lose power but most of the city did.  My parents were out for 2 weeks.  In their neighborhood a neighbors Mercedes was flattened like pancake by a huge tree.  Walked over to Southpark to the old Eckerds drugstore inside the mall and stocked up.  My dad was grilling all their meat on the gas grill every day for a week. I ate good  but the damage was incredible all the trees down.    I was commuting up to Davidson on 77 which was lightly travelled back then in a reverse commute from the city.  

I remember going to Charleston one month after Hugo hit and the devastation in Mt Pleasant and Charleston was so widespread and I remember seeing the Ben Sawyer Bridge upended over to Sullivans Island from Mt P.  And that was the last time real estate was dirt cheap in Charleston.  The losses if a storm took this path today would be Billions upon Billions in SC alone not to mention the damage to this area.  

It was the worst of times but also the best of times.  Neighbor helping neighbor.  People holding cookouts for their neighbors.  The National Guard directed traffic in Charlotte for weeks all around town. 

found this photo online of the then NCNB Plaza aka BofA Plaza notice the blown out windows.  Dittos for the tallest building in town One FU, aka One Wells Fargo. 

Edited September 22, 2019 by KJHburg

[KJHburg]

I just saw this mentioned on the news tonight so I watched it about Hugo.  A WSOCTV report on how it was reported Hugo.  It was a shared experience of everyone in Charlotte at the time rich and poor, black and white, northside southside. Lets hope this was a once in 100 year event and never seen again in my lifetime.

https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/must-watch-wsoc-tv-legends-reflect-on-hurricane-hugo/834209009

WBTV remembers

https://www.wbtv.com/video/2019/09/20/hurricane-hugo-th-anniversary-special-preview/

Edited September 23, 2019 by KJHburg

[Dale]

10 hours ago, KJHburg said:

I just saw this mentioned on the news tonight so I watched it about Hugo.  A WSOCTV report on how it was reported Hugo.  It was a shared experience of everyone in Charlotte at the time rich and poor, black and white, northside southside. Lets hope this was a once in 100 year event and never seen again in my lifetime.

https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/must-watch-wsoc-tv-legends-reflect-on-hurricane-hugo/834209009

WBTV remembers

https://www.wbtv.com/video/2019/09/20/hurricane-hugo-th-anniversary-special-preview/

My wife still talks about it. Said she was without power for eight days. I grew up in the Hurricane State - Florida, and I was never without power for more than four days.