Mine would have to be the Hurricane that hit southern England on 16th October 1987. A worried viewer had phoned the BBC saying she had heard there was a hurricane on the way, but infamously, the late night TV weather forecast stated “don’t worry, there isn’t”. Well….less than 6 hrs later the storm ripped across southern England. The forecaster who gave the famous late night foreast, Michael Fish, always maintained the average wind speeds were not high enough for it to be called a hurricane. That may be true, but it was the 120mph (that’s mph, not kph) that did the damage. We lost one roof tile and our TV aerial, but one houses in our road lost their entire roof. I was driving home on an exposed stretch of road in the evning leading up to this, and got hit by one gust then which was powerful enough to blow the car on to the other side of the road. But, it wasn’t like being blown, more like ‘sucked’.

I was working night shift in a Melbourne factory on the day Victoria had been ravaged by the Ash Wednesday bushfires of 1983. I went out onto the roof of the CBD building about 11pm, the temperature still more than 30C. Drops of mud were falling from above. It took me a minute or two to realise it was starting to rain and there was so much dust and smoke in the atmosphere that it was actually raining mud.

It certainly wasn’t my favourite, and it won’t ever be, but it was certainly memorable…When the weather bomb came thru Kapiti/Horowhenua in July 2008, waking up at 5am to find trees down my gutter hanging by a thread and banging agaijnst the window, the power pole leaning precariously across the road, the NZ Courier Post Truck barely driving underneath the dipping power lines, and the Electra operator asking me, “Is it an Emergency?”

Coming home from work to find all th treeson teh NOrth side of the house down thru the yard thru the windows and thru the floor!

Memorable, but no fun!

The other event would have to be the Wahine Storm/Disaster back in 1968. As an impressionable 5 year old child, I remember walking home from school during it, and then after the Wahine foundered on Barrets Reef going to see her wallowing on her side…pretty impressive for my little 5 year old eyes.

Have a few but one I remember was a good tasman storm encountered returning to Sydney after a 15 night cruise in 1988.  Within half an hour of the sea turning rough 3 quarters of the passengers were queued outside the medical centre for seasick tablets.  I looked at our luggage hoised in cargo nets for off loading the next morning and hoped they would still be there.  Managed to get photos of some decent sized swells.  Going below decks to get my camera was interesting when the lift starting swinging from side to side.  Another kiwi couple on board in an outside cabin got woken up 2am by their stewart who had orders to secure all port holes  (with steel deadlights). 
We had earlier dodged a cyclone in Port Villa which although 500 miles offshore still prevented the tug from pulling our 24,000 tonne ship out and after about an hour 1/2 with no progress the master decided to say put.  Fortuntely the cyclone did not make the predicted landfall in Villa.  We did not get seasick and still had a great holiday.

Experiencing raw heat right here in NZ. Down in Timaru for the 41C day, had no air conditioning where we were for lunch, then came back to CHCh for the rest of the evening where it was about 38 at our house until after sunset when it dropped to about 24. Sorry Aucklanders. You’ll never experience that in the big smoke unfortunately!

It So had to be the recent snow fall on the Kapiti Coast! My sister jo and I had a ball ! Had snow ball fights made mini snowmen, and just stood out there watching it float to the ground. Didn’t realise how much fun we’d had until the next day when the neighbour said they had wondered who the kids were at our place that night out playing in the snow, and it was Us!!

My favourite weather event was the massive thunderstorms I witnessed in Australia’s Sunshine Coast in November 2008. One in particular where the lightning was going at a rate of one flash every one or two seconds. Never seen anything like it before, and judging by the camera flashes from nearby hotels, neither had a lot of others. Happily I was able to film it but the video doesn’t do the real thing justice. It was thrilling.

Love wintry days with hot soup and toast, works everytime 🙂