well, since we have moved here or temporarily moved up… (note: we are still in the process of moving)… we have seen some mighty strange stuff… We lived in Colorado in the 70’s and 80’s so yea we have seen cold, snow and all that but geez Louise… this wind stuff is over the top. yesterday it started warming up. In our past experience we didn’t live on the front range so we did not truly experience the down slope winds we have had recently… I had heard of Chinook but that is supposed to be a spring event this I am not sure what it was but Oklahoma winds are nothing compared to these. They recorded sustained wind speeds of over 100mph on some of the mountains around here and boy what a mess… There are always the signs of high wind warnings along I-25 in various spots and today they issued a shut down to commercial high profile trucks pretty early but then had to just shut down I-25 to all trucks as some did not head the warnings…
I was off to town to pick up some update material for the house and from getting on I-25 at county line road (Monument Hill) to the Interquest exit (about 8 miles) I saw 3 trucks that didn’t make it… I finally got my camera out and got a picture of the last one and boy that must have been on Hell of a Ride…
Yep, he is headed the wrong way…
From here the wind was driving from right to left and I would guess he had just come out from under this over pass I am on… ? with the way the wind was blowing there is no way he was actually headed North on the far set of lanes and there is no indication he came over the guard rail…
Even in this shot I am not sure that the cab is headed the right direction… just hope the driver came out ok…
I knew was going to be a weird day when I got up and checked and the temps were 10 degrees warmer than when we went to bed and a quick look out showed the 80 ft. pine trees here were swinging 10+ feet at the top and boy I can tell you that is a bit un-nerving as well to be down in the middle of all these tall pines and they are whipping back and forth like noodles… So far we have made it through, better than a few of the trucks on the road…
On the local news they reported the El Paso county court house was shut down to to roof damage and power loss, several homes and business lost roofs… and almost all the snow from last week and the –5 deg weather is gone… since it was near 50 all day today due to the heating by the high winds flowing down the mountains… Geez this is fun… One extreme to the next…
On another note… I sure am enjoying my new SharkRf OPenspot (ham radio digital link). I got it working last weekend and tonight listened to the Oklahoma digital net from way out here… then swapped out for a TAC 310 listen and then listened to the local Monument repeater net… (didn’t need the digital for that but all done on the same little radio… and no I didn’t check into any of the nets, figure it is best to listen to several and get the jest of how they are run before I venture in… ha! Now if I could just get a few more things working around here…
WD0AJG