...was exciting. A little like this, actually:
This Evening's Excitement
So... there I was... sitting under the awning enjoying a cigar and a post-evening-mealwhiskeyG&T in the early evening, say around18151845 hours. The weather was kinda gray but not at all threatening and sitting as I was, which is to say looking off to the southwest, I was completely oblivious to the maelstrom that was sneaking up from the northeast, directly behind the RV... and me. And then it hit me, almost literally, in the form of an orange-brown sky and a particularly violent gust of wind. "Uh-oh," thinks I, and I get up and peek around the RV and see DOOM bearing down on me... and rapidly, at that. I VERY quickly jumped up, unfastened the awning deflapper closest to me, lowered the awning strut, and quick like a bunny moved to the other side of the awning to do the same. Done. I then flipped the ratchet lever to retract the awning and... the ratchet jammed. The wind howled. I fought the ratchet lever... and nothing. The awning is still half-way down and the wind is increasing in intensity.
It was a lot like that, actually... save for the fact the awning's ratchet didn't jam this time. I manged to set a new world's record for rapid awning roll-up in that the thing was safely furled about 22 seconds after the first unexpected wind gust hit. The wind was a little like this:
I say a little bit because we had steady 50mph winds with gusts of 69mph in the video above; last night it was only 40mph steady wind with gusts over 50. Still and even, it provided more than enough excitement. Storms literally come up out of NOWHERE in the these parts. It pays to pay attention.
Later that same evening...
Bad sky!
Bad sky too!
A faint rainbow.
Wow, that's like being snuck up upon by an elephant.
ReplyDeleteLove a good storm, but I prefer when they call ahead.
Can't watch vid at work, but here is my boating tip:
ReplyDeleteKeep a bag of nylon cable ties tied to somewhere on the awning. If the retrieve function fails you can roll up by hand and tie the ends and the middle with the zip ties.
Just another boating tip from the Barco Sin Vela.
Wow pretty impressive wind there Buck. And I have to say that bad sky is really quite beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThat was crazy last night! I was about a mile away from you at the softball complex pitching a game when it hit. It was to my back but when it came time to bat it was hell. When it started raining all the games were called. Glad you got the awning up ok.
ReplyDeleteI did get the awning up, Jenny, but at a cost. I didn't get the hook rod out because all Hell was breaking loose, so I just let the awning spring up the last 24 inches or so. Bad move. I sprung the spring and screwed up the ratcheting mechanism in the process. Which I didn't discover until I went to put the awning down today. God only knows what THIS act of stupidity is gonna cost me...
ReplyDeleteBut, yeah. It was sumthin', wasn't it? Glad you're OK and all that!
Matt: Agreed. A lil warning is better than no warning at all.
ReplyDeleteDarryl: Boat awnings must be different than RV awnings... in that there's no space between the RV and the awning to slip a zip tie through - it's a seamless connection between awning and RV.
Kris: Thanks for the kind words on the pics!
Oh my gosh Buck ... that's just how it looked around here on Sunday night! Some weather we've been having in New Mexico this month!
ReplyDeleteSharon: It's been strange. Normally the dry line is usually to the east of us, over in Tejas. Not THIS year, tho! We've had some spectacular storms this Spring, including a few tornado sightings.
ReplyDeleteStorms are amazing like that. I love the color in the pics.
ReplyDelete