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Weather yarns

> From the WeatherWatch archives

Most of us can remember a particular weather event at some stage in our life and there are often plenty of yarns about certain experiences and sometimes as the years go by, the stories can get bigger and bigger!

From the international file, here’s an email about ball lightning and an episode that would’ve been somewhat hairaising… 

My name is Enrique (Henry) J. Coll. I now live in Canada since 1969, but I was born and raised in Uruguay, a small country in South America.
When I was 10 years old in 1958, two of my cousins and I were sitting in the living-room of my uncle’s farm house having something to eat in the afternoon. My aunt was making some toast for us and prior to that, she had been ironing some clothes. It was a nice spring afternoon and we had had some showers with moderate thunder, but everything was calm and there was a little bit of sunshine through the clouds.
My cousins and I were just about to get up from the sofa where we were watching TV and walk to the kitchen to sit down and eat when all of a sudden, a ball of fire, the size of a soccer ball and yellowish orange in color entered through the open kitchen window.
It was hissing very loudly and moved in a zig/zag/ fashion across the room until it hit the water faucet’s in the kitchen. A loud bang was heard and the plaster from the brick wall shattered in all directions. About two seconds later, it disappeared under the front door.
There was sulfur smell in the air. The TV was burned, many outlets of the house were charred and also the iron was smoking and burned.
The wall was opened-up with a big crack. We did not know what had happened but when my uncle commented this with some people, he was told that the house had been hit by a CENTELLA, which is the name that they are known in Spanish.

***

We’re sure there are some closer to home and if it’s a blizzard, flood or cyclone, it’d be great to hear from you. 

Comments

Before you add a new comment, take note this story was published on 15 Aug 2009.

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