MKIV987

So the other night here in Central Arkansas we got hit with a pretty brutal thunderstorm (40+ mph winds, driving rain, lightning, downed trees) that hit around 2 a.m. I couldn't help thinking about how awful (and dangerous) it would be to get caught up in that storm while camping. Have any of you ever been surprised by severe weather? What do you do to avoid getting caught in situations like that?

Machka 

Most campgrounds I've stayed in post a printout of the local weather information ... current and 5-day forecast. The weather information from the internet is often not very accurate (they predicted rain this morning here and there wasn't a cloud in the sky all day), but it can give you an idea of what might happen.

Probably more accurate is my own reading of the weather. If you spend enough time outside, cycling long distances, and paying attention to what's going on around you, you should have a reasonable idea of what is going to happen in the next couple hours. Pay attention to the wind, clouds, changes in the humidity levels, the way the leaves of certain trees turn silver side up when there's a storm approaching, the way a small version of the usual fly appear and start swarming when rain is coming, the way black cockatoos appear when rain is coming ....

And when you camp, it is a good idea to choose your location wisely. Here in Australia it is a bad idea to camp under a gum tree. Gum trees drop their branches all over the place on good days, but if a strong wind or big storm comes up you run the risk of being squashed by a large branch. It's also a bad idea to camp in a low lying area, especially anything that looks like it might be a dry creek bed. A storm could hit an area quite a ways away, and a flash flood could wash your campsite away.

Carbonfiberboy 

We always carry a NOAH weather radio here in the US. The little ones are light and the information so valuable that we always carry one, whether backpacking or touring. They're worth every ounce! So no, we've never been surprised and have frequently scheduled longer or shorter days to put us in a favorable spot to enjoy the bad weather.

cyccommute 

Weather information is so ubiquitous in our society that it's hard to avoid it. Just about every where you go you can find information of some kind. Last year, while in Arkansas, I was well aware of an approaching front via various sources. I had already decided to spend the night indoors in Hot Springs and even decided, after a wild night of watching the weather to spend a second day there.

I have spent a night in hard structured shower rooms when I wasn't paying attention. My family and I did that in Wisconsin when we heard the sirens and were in a motor home...borrowed...and I did it again in Texas on the trip last year. The one thing about tents is that you are well aware of the weather When you hear a boom and then see the flash, you know it's time to head for shelter.

gamecock

I don't put anything into my ears while riding. I like to hear the wind, birds, insects, and trucks. I only listen to a small radio with ear buds to catch the news and weather evenings, and I sometime like to listen to local talk radio in the morning, generally catching the weather forecast again.

wahoonc

Like Machka I spend a lot of time outdoors and can read the weather pretty well. Local knowledge helps. In the past my livelihood depended on being able to watch and call the weather, regardless of what the paid professionals had to say.

I do carry a small radio that has the NOAA stations on it, and I do listen to it, primarily for the trends. On my most recent short tours I have had a smart phone that will allow me to check local weather. In the past I have had pagers that would also set off warnings based on zip codes.

Aaron

staehpj1

I get my weather info on tour in the following ways:

1. I pay attention to my surroundings. Having been a sailor for many years and an outdoors kind of person for all of my 60 years, I do pretty well at this.
2. Most places you stop in the rural US, if the weather is anything unusual it will be what every conversation you over hear is about. If there is anything worth warning about, someone generally does.
3. If that isn't the case and I am even slightly concerned I ask.
4. Once I was flagged down by a motorist who heard on his radio that there was a severe storm approaching. We wound up taking shelter in "Sheltering Arms Hospital". Appropriate huh?

transporterjr

I was considering carrying my crank/solar eton weather/fm radio. Heavier than I would usually carry, but it's also a LED flashlight, I don't need spare batteries and it can provide some dinner music. With hd phones-music for me at night.

Bike Hermit

get the weather channel app for your smart phone.

PomPilot

I have a Midland NOAA weather alert radio, that is about the size of two match boxes. It fits in a side pocket of my handlebar nicely.

Rowan

Interesting, but what happens when you are touring in a country where English is a second or third language (ie, no radio stations broadcast in English).

I've generally been a "poke my head out the tent and see what is happening" sort of tourist. If the weather is bad, I stay put or seek sturdier accommodation.

There are areas where I would manage my touring plans to avoid severe weather conditions. The cyclone/hurricane areas would be one, and the tornado alleys would be another.

My distrust of weather forecasters is ever increasing. Sometimes they are right, but more often they are wrong. And with this in mind, I am increasingly concerned about the major influence of their "science" on public policy across the globe.

Cyclebum

Was in a park in Texas once. Ranger came by after I'd bedded down and warned me of approaching severe thunderstorm with possible tonadoes attached. He herded us all into a substantial restroom where we watch the passing fury. My tent was still standing and dry when I went back to it. Several small tornadoes did touch down in the area.

I have since acquired a Walkman with NOAA channels.

B. Carfree

I generally do what Machka does. About 25 years ago I was heading south on the Blue Ridge Parkway in South Carolina, which is the wrong side of the country for me, when a large group of Canadian cyclists heading north told me a hurricane was coming our way. We don't do hurricanes on the Best Coast, so I wasn't sure of what I should be seeing if one was approaching, but it just didn't seem right. Sure enough, the storm turned northeast long before striking land. In fact, the next morning was so foggy we didn't ride. If we were down along the coast instead of inland in the speed-bumps those folks called mountains we probably would have stayed at a hotel that night for sure.

Chris L

I don't think we should confuse weather forecasts with science. Most scientists generally observe events that have actually happened and form conclusions on that basis. Weather forecasters, on the other hand, seem to ignore things that have actually happened and try to write forecasts that will look good to certain people (such as tourist operators in this city, which is why summer forecasts here always seem to understate the temperature by several degrees).

However, I generally do as you do on in my touring plans, and try to avoid the most extreme weather conditions. Although I might add that some of my most memorable rides have been in conditions that others might describe as "extreme", such as the typhoon in Japan last year -- although there, the mountains kept me pretty sheltered from the wind.

Erick L

I work as a weather observer and the 24-48 hour forecasts are very accurate. They do make mistakes but it's quite rare. One thing is the weather guy/girl on the radio or tv isn't a forecaster and will omit or interpret some parts. The other thing is people only pick the parts of the forecast that suit them, and if the forecast is indeed wrong, only remember those. I see this all the time.

A little anecdote about people's perception of the weather. A few years ago, people were whining about a rainy month of may. It was so bad that it was the talk of the town. News anchors would start their show by making cracks about it, the whole thing. Meanwhile, the hours of sunshine were well above average. It didn't match popular perception so Environment Canada sent an inspector to check our numbers. They found an error all right, they had to add even more hours of sunshine! I was curious about all this so I checked the observations for every day of the month. Guess what, it only rained on the week-ends, when people are likely to be outside.

I saw the same thing in the summer, when people complained about a rainy summer when it only rained in late afternoon or evening storms, when people are out of the office. Then you get people complaining that a forecast for thunderstorms are wrong but they don't realise thunderstorms are extremely local.

More likely because the data is collected in a different location, usually in some airport field, which is colder than in the middle of a town, and under controlled conditions (always in shadow). The forecasts reflect that. It's always colder here at the station than in town. I can even feel it when I commute to work and turn on the last street, which is surrounded by grass fields instead of buildings and asphalt.

My 2 cents...

Machka 

One thing to keep in mind about weather forecasting organisations is that, because of cutbacks or for some other reason, weather reporting stations have been removed, and there might only be one in a 500 km radius or something.

Yesterday, the weather forecast for the area where we were cycling said, "Cloudy, isolated morning showers" ... but when we got there, the sky couldn't have been more clear and blue and it remained clear and blue all day. Not a cloud. Not a drop of rain. Not even the slightest suggestion of a possiblilty of rain.

But evidently, some computer model put together some information collected from some other part of the state and the computer model suggested that it must be cloudy there.

We experienced this all the time in Red Deer. For a while forecasts there were in the ball park of being correct, but then Env. Canada removed the weather reporting station and just took an average of the information in Edmonton and the information in Calgary, and reported that as the forecast. What they failed to realise is that Red Deer is in a completely different weather pattern than either of those places because of where it was located in proximity to the mountains, and more often than not, the forecasts were completely wrong ... especially the current conditions and the conditions in the near future. So often the current conditions would be cloudy with drizzle, and we'd look out at a completely blue sky ... or sunny all day and meanwhile we'd be having an all-day storm.

But what made me really realise that these weather sites are a joke was when the site for my current area would list the high for the day and the rainfall for the day at 9 am. At 9 am, I would already know that the high for the day is 23C and that the rainfall for the day is 10 mm. I have complained about that several times and finally, just in the last month or so, it has changed.

Erick L

This looks like an automatic station picking dust blown up by the wind.

Tourist in MSN

An older marine band radio that also has weather bands. Some radios are better than others. I have gotten good signal with my old marine band radio when others with newer radios could not get signal. I also have a CB radio with weather band but the radio does not pull in a signal as well as my marine band radio.

There are a lot more weather radio stations now than there were about 10 years ago. I used to have to carry a high gain antenna that was about a yard long and walk around the campsite until I got signal. I have not carried the high gain antenna for several years.

I find that the weather is more important on my kayak trips on Lake Superior or canoe trips in the boundary waters (Minnesota/Canada border) than for cycle trips because big wind and waves is a frequent safety issue on larger lakes with cold water.

I try to catch the forecast first thing in the morning while the coffee water is heating and again at the end of the day after 4:30pm. The wind forecast for the next few days is usually quite useful. On some trips I have modified schedule based on wind forecast. You don't mess around with gale warnings on Lake Superior.

Also use a Casio watch with a barometer. In the morning I can look at the chart and see if pressure is rising or falling during the night, but you can't use it during the day while moving because slight elevation changes will confuse the readings. In this case (see photo) the graph shows a low pressure system slowly moving in, each pixel is two hours so there is about 16 hours of data on the graph.

Rowan

I'm sorry, Erick, but we know differently. The weather information gathered for our area is located next to a large lake. That information is then translated into being the weather for an area at least in a 50km radius. We know that the rainfall recorded in that town is vastly different to that which would be recorded in our town 30km away. We know this because I work in both towns daily. The data collected therefore provides a weather forecast for our town that is regularly inaccurate.

I also know that the weather forecasts created by the Bureau of Meteorlogy here are based on one of three or four computer models incorporating the collected data, and the one that is publicly broadcast, by the bureau reprsentatives on the radio no less, is chosen by the duty forecaster. I would say the reliablity of those forecasts falls somewhat short of 100%.

The thing about weather forecasts is that when they are not accurate, the financial ramifications for people such as farmers can be considerable. For yachtsmen, they can be fatal, as a Sydney-Hobart yacht race about 20 years ago showed when a monster storm hit the fleet and many boats and lives were lost (I've also been around yacht racing a lot, and weather forecasting then was far from ideal).

I also have to reinforce that the national radio broadcasting service here, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has BoM officials giving forecasts live in each region. Sorry, there are no commercial or socialogical considerations.

Related more to the subject, a friend of mine who was a cycling tourist was also a keen listener to weather forecasts in Tasmania. On several occasions, he decided not to go on a weekend tour with me because the official weather forecast was for rain and wind. I looked out the window and the weather pattern in my home city that I'd got to know quite well was for blue skies and sunshine. I went, he didn't, and I had superb weather on each occasion.

Mind you, having toured and randonneed in Tasmania, I learned to pack clothing for all conditions... just in case.

Chris L

Of course it is. The data here is collected at the Gold Coast Seaway on the end of The Spit, which is surrounded by water on three sides. However, for the purposes of this thread, it makes the forecast virtually useless to a cyclist, touring or otherwise, who will hear a forecast talking about a temperature of 28 degrees C, and end up having to deal with 34 degrees C instead. Although even the temperatures measured there will often exceed the forecast maximum by 7am.

Then there is this habit (in Australia at least) of only measuring the day's maximum temperature. The town where I grew up used to get some pretty extreme maximum temperatures -- often exceeding 40 degrees C, but because of it's inland location and low humidity, it would usually only get hot for a couple of hours a day. This is a real contrast to where I live now, where the temperatures appear more moderate, but because of the higher humidity and the fact that maximum daily temperatures are often reached early in the morning and stay until well after dark, the summers tend to be a lot more unpleasant.

Having said all of that, I did consult the BOM website earlier in the year and cancel a short tour due to a flood warning -- quite wisely as it turned out. I guess all this proves that weather forecasts can have some value when it comes to extreme events (although in the case of the flood, it was more of an observation than a forecast).

Newspaperguy

I'm considering getting a barometer or a weather tool for some of this summer's riding. I'll be in areas where I doubt I'll have radio reception, but I still need to know what to expect for any given day.

djb

on tour I have just gone by locals and my eyes. Have had reasonable success for getting under shelter before storms arrive, but then its really just being observant.

At home, Environment Canada is the home page on my computers, I find Env. Canada to be consistently very good with forecasts, and have been for years and years. As I enjoy cross country skiing in the winter, they are pretty good for winter forecasts also.
As I am still ludditish vis a vis not having a smart phone or ipod that can get internet, Im afraid to say that on bike, Im still going the old fashioned way of looking up and listening/asking people.

Many years ago at a Science museum in San Fransisco, there was an excellent physical model representing how weather changes are so related to all kinds of factors,and hard to predict ahead of time past a certain point. Basically it was a 3-D rotational thingee with multilple hinge points (kinda like those electron bonding model thingees) so when you moved one part, you could see how it moved another part a bit, which moved another part a bit more....a neat visual representation of how weather is a fluid, moving thing with changes that tip and affect other patterns. It was a well done project, and great for getting kids and adults to visually understand better teh complexities of weather patterns.

pdlamb

One recommendation -- always get a state map. It's almost humorous to be in a small town and hear a radio or TV announce, "Tornado warning in XXX" -- and you don't know where XXX is, or where your are in relationship to it. Almost, because it could be northeast of you (past you, don't worry about it), or it could be 5 miles to your southwest (get in a solid building, away from the windows, and PRONTO!).

Mostly, we went by "What does it look like today?" As a result, there was the bad rainy day ride, the "do we ride some more or stop this afternoon?" day, the good rainy day ride, and the we got caught by a downpour but everything worked out well evening. Looking back, that was part of the fun!

Tourist in MSN

See my comments above in post number 18.

The nice thing about the Casio watches that have the 24 hour graph is that you can see the trend, not simply a single data point. After you use it for a while you get accustomed to how the shape of the curve on the graph can affect the weather.

But, assuming you are changing elevation during the day, it is only useful in the morning when you have been at a constant elevation for quite a few hours.

I have noticed that some of the Casios are better than others, some have stable readings but others have erratic results if the temperature changes. I think it is a roll of the dice on if you get a good one or not.

Carbonfiberboy 

Here in the PNW, NOAH forecasts are very reliable in the 48 hour window. They do have a tendency to be conservative, in that they tend to emphasize the worst conditions that might happen. This is a good thing. Better to forecast rain and/or wind and get sun and calm than the other way 'round. As always, the first rule in life obtains: show up.