Category: Weather

Two Letters Re: More Flooding in Australia

Hi Jim,   Just to let you know, a TEOTWAWKI situation came to our town (Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia) two days ago.  Toowoomba is known as the Garden City, and sits at the top of the Great Dividing Range, at 3,000 feet above sea level.  After weeks of constant rainfall that soaked catchments of a drought stricken region, we received six inches of rain in an hour. This deluge caused a flash flood (that has been since called an “Inland Tsunami”) that raged through the middle of Toowoomba.  The speed of the flood took everyone by surprise and cars and people …


Letter Re: An Alabama Snowstorm

James Wesley: It is beginning to snow in Alabama.  In small towns all around, the grocery stores have been stripped down to the shelves.  People were buying food to cook in fear that they might not make it to the grocery stores when they need to.  Milk is all but gone.    I went to the grocery store Sunday morning to pick-up a few doughnuts for our Sunday school class.  I saw one of my wife’s friends on the junk food aisle.  She is a single mom of two.  She said, “I have $40 to buy groceries to get us …


Letter Re: The Queensland Floods

Jim, I’m almost 58 years old –  have lived in North Queensland (“Qld”) most of my life.  This is the worst flooding in Qld that I can remember – it is so widespread.  I have a house in Townsville, but have spent most of the last two years at my retreat area, 4.5 hours by car from here, and Townsville does not usually experience a lot of rain.  However, found myself in Townsville before Christmas, and the road then flooded over at Ingham, and was not able to drive to my retreat area to be with my daughter for Christmas …


A Doctor’s View of TEOTWAWKI, by Michael S., M.D.

Dear Mr. Rawles, I am a physician in Iowa and have read SurvivalBlog and many books related to survival including yours. In general there are many good thoughts and insights in the Blog. History predicts the future and some facts of history seem to have been overlooked by many survivalists. Many predict that in a long term situation, those left would be in an 1880s situation. In Iowa, most counties had a peak population in the 1880 census. Most counties in Iowa have lost population every census since then (1940 was generally flat) this means that the land could support …


Letter Re: Observations on a Major Midwest Snow Storm

Hello JWR,   I would like to post a brief observation from the most recent snow storm here in Minneapolis this past weekend as it relates to the “Golden Horde“.  A very large storm system that started Friday evening and ended up dumping 18 inches of snow till Saturday evening.  It will go down on record as the fifth largest in the history and as you probably know it caused the Metrodome’s roof to collapse.  I am a daily reader of SurvivalBlog and have been for some time now.  I have been making my preps for a few years now after finally …


Letter Re: Cascading Chains of Events

An early winter here in the Pacific Northwest reminded me that cascades can get you into trouble and potentially kill.   “Cascades” are what I call the series of events that take us farther and farther from the safety of home and hearth.   Let me explain what happened to me just yesterday:   Yesterday, the temperature warmed to just above freezing for the first time in about three weeks.  During those three weeks, about two feet of snow had fallen.   My tractor developed a leaky rear tire, so I took it off to take it to town to …


Letter Re: Cold Weather Inbound for Eastern United States

Jim,   Hope all is well!  Hopefully everyone reading your blog will already be prepped for what is inbound….but in case some are not aware, AccuWeather is predicting incredible cold for much of the East and Southeastern US…all the way to Florida.   Everyone needs to be sure to have water, warm clothes, boots, blankets in their vehicles…especially for those transporting children.  Batteries and water pumps often fail in cold weather and to have such a failure in extreme cold can be life threatening if one is not prepared for the event!    Water in the fuel lines of vehicles …


My Path to Preparedness, by C. in The Ozarks

I am almost 60 years old.  I have a neurological disease which has forced my early retirement.  I am single, never been married, and have no children.  My parents are both deceased and my sister is deceased.  My brother is retired and lives in Florida.  [Some deleted, for brevity.] I also do not have any friends.  My best friend decided that since she couldn’t see the effects of my neurological disease then I must be faking it and being lazy to retire early.  She doesn’t see me writhing in pain most evenings even though I take a lot of pain …


Being Prepared – How Hurricane Andrew Saved My Life, by Richard in Miami, Florida

I am by nature a positive person. On the other hand, I fully recognize that we live in a very dangerous world. Ignoring the reality will not make you safe – that would only be an illusion of safety. I sincerely believe that far too many of us live in a fantasy world shaped by what we see on television, and reinforced by our very limited exposure to the world outside our immediate communities. Also, many of us are so caught up in the daily rat race that we don’t stop to think about much else. To me, being prepared …


Letter Re: Forecasting the Weather in a Grid-Down Situation

Old Farmer wrote an excellent piece. As he noted, each area is different and has its own patterns. I have spent decades as a pilot and have learned to read the weather fairly well. A couple of tips the Farmer left out: 1. If you place your left shoulder into the wind (or the direction from which the clouds are moving) you are facing into an area of low pressure. This is useful in locating the source of bad weather. For example, if your weather generally moves in from the west and you have a wind coming in from the …


Forecasting the Weather in a Grid-Down Situation, by the Old Farmer

I love satellite radar in real time. I’m a big fan of NOAA‘s weather alerts and a unit sits in our kitchen next to the old-fashioned pilot-light gas stove. But over the years I’ve learned a couple of things. One, they’re never completely right, and two, it all depends on technologies we might not have in the not too distant future. I could maybe add a third, just a theory of mine, that computer weather models are based on prejudices that might not be entirely true, like global warming. That could mean that the forecaster is assuming a kind of …


Letter Re: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Ike, by John in Texas

Jim, I really appreciate the people who share their lessons learned on SurvivalBlog.com, so I thought I would share my experiences and lessons learned from Hurricane Ike. Hurricane Ike hit Houston on Friday night September 13, 2008.  The hurricane was classified as a strong category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 110 MPH.  What was unusual about this hurricane was the large size of the storm.  Hurricane force winds extended 120 miles from the center.  Gas stations in our area ran out of gas the day before the storm (Thursday).  I waited in a very long line of cars only …


Letter Re: Hurricane Earl Headed for U.S. East Coast

Hi Mr. Rawles. I hope that everything is going well for you. You might want to pass this on to your readers. As of a couple of minutes ago, Janice Dean, the Weather Lady on the Fox News Channel, was discussing Hurricane Earl. They are urging all residents from the Outer Banks to the Canadian Maritimes to review their Hurricane Evacuation Routes and be ready to “Bug Out” within the next few days. Computer Modeling shows no weakening of the Hurricane, the only question is just how close Hurricane Earl will get to the Eastern Seaboard. God’s Blessings on you …


Lessons from Eastern Siberia, by S.P.

Lessons from Eastern Siberia, by S.P. When I was 18, I spent six weeks in the Sakha Republic (or Yakutia) of Siberia. It is roughly three times the size of Alaska yet has a population of less than 1 million. With the Arctic Circle bordering the north of the Sakha Republic and the Lena River winding its way through it is a largely rural population of self sufficient farmers, fishermen, and reindeer herders. My time there was spent living in a soviet era apartment in either Yakutsk (its capital) or Moxogolloch (a small port town along the Lena River) or …


Letter Re: Solar Storms

Hi Jim, Your note of last night regarding the pending solar storm was the strongest prep wake up call I’ve had yet. Especially as I finished reading One Second After Been just last night! I’ve been up all night making sure things are in order the best I can. Now that I’ve done what I can, and still wound up on adrenaline, I spent some time digging through the Internet for more EMP information. I thought that this Huffington Post article really explains some of the real dangers quite well – such as how the transformers that are damaged by …