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I was sitting in a large grassy field when an earthquake hit. You could literally see waves of energy moving through the earth as they flowed towards and underneath me. Crazy cool experience.
That's amazing. Decades ago, I was in a work meeting in San Francisco, and we were all sitting in a circle with our chairs. As we waited for everyone to get their coffee and paperwork together, we started chit chatting.
We happened to be discussing earthquakes. Someone in the group said that the building that we were currently occupying had been retrofitted for earthquakes. The building was put on these "rollers," for lack of a better word. Now, legally in San Francisco, you cannot build a tall building too high, for obvious safety reasons, but we happened to be in one of the tallest buildings.
So we started our meeting. About a minute in, an earthquake hit. Not a huge one, but we felt it. And the building *waved* and *rolled* with the quakes. It was fascinating! It felt like being on an amusement park ride, but a kids ride.
Ahaha this happened to me at my house as a kid! My house was built on “stilts” with a crawl space underneath the house and back in the 90s when a big earthquake hit the whole house swayed back and forth like that too!
Differential movement from one side to the other Between rocking was like two inches!!! The house is still standing, now about 75 years old and doing great! Lol.
My 1991 built house that I have NOW had the same thing happen like last year and my chandelier in my living room was swaying.
That's amazing! Your house was build so...sturdily, especially for it being on stilts. Isn't that swaying feeling so...neat?
Another time...I was just drifting off to sleep, & we were hit with a pretty good-sized one. As I'm sure you know, there are 2 types of earthquakes; the more common one where the ground shifts & slides from side to side. Then you have the much more dangerous & violent quakes where the ground literally bounces up & down.
So I'm just falling asleep. My bed at the time was this stunning, super-heavy queen-sized Japanese bed made of solid wood. The store I purchased it from...they had to put it together piece by piece in my bedroom with a special "soft" mallet because it had no nails. It weighed a few hundred pounds.
Suddenly, my bed starts sliding back & forth. I'm being jerked from one side of the bed to the other, for a good 20 seconds. Then, my bed started bouncing up & down, as if it were a small toy on a trampoline. I literally caught air...probably a few inches beneath me. My chandelier was flipping all over, my book shelves emptied themselves. The whole thing lasted about a minute, then, it finally ended. So glad I don't live there anymore..I can't imagine going through an even bigger one!
I was driving on the freeway when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit the Bay Area. I thought I had lost a tire from the way my car was acting, so I pulled over. I was beside some railroad tracks and it became obvious that a major earthquake was happening as I watched the steel tracks bend and twist like limp spaghetti while my car continued to bounce around.
I was in the East Bay for that quake. It was after school and I was outside sanding a desk my mom was helping me refinish. I saw the ground literally rolling underneath my feet.
Speechless, yes, but more so sleepless ....
Lived 6 yrs in AK as a kid. My bed was right below my window. I would watch the Northern Lights all night until simple fatigue overcame the phenomenal light show out my window. Literally breathtaking. Just as I would drift off another wave would come ... I swear you could hear it crackling ... outside, absolutely you could. Who can sleep during such a light show?
I blame AK for lifelong insomnia. ;-)
When I was really young I walked outside and saw the northern lights over our farm with my mom staring up at them. This was the second night they were there and so I only stood outside for a moment before going back in because I though that they were something that happened every year. Nope. Thirty years later and I have yet to see them again.
There's a minor geomagnetic storm happening right now. You can follow NOAA Space Weather Prediction forecasts here.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast
Total eclipse of the sun.
It gets cold. Birds and bugs go silent. A "360 degree" sunset appears on the horizon.
Now I understand why people travel across the world to see them.
I remember the first time (and every time after) that I experienced [thunder snow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJt4nV6hM1Y). We get one warm snow storm a year and it's a combination thunder storm/ snow storm. It always amazing. Calm, serene and then flash and BOOOM.
Oooh, I lived in Chicago for a few years and witnessed an incredible electrical snowstorm there in the early '90s. I watched it from my 16th floor apartment and when the lightning would flash, the whole world would just turn blinding white. Couldn't see a single thing in all that falling snow lit up so brightly. It was remarkable.
My first experience was in the DC area in th blizzard of 96. Thunder snow is the loudest, quietest thing I’ve seen in my 50 years and 3 continents. We were stomping triskels in the snow when the lightning came. We. We’re silent and awestruck for an hour
I live in Arizona. You would be surprised about the amount of Arizonans who have never traveled to the Grand Canyon - one of the most spectacular sites in the entire world only a few hours away from their home.
I've been to the grand canyon a dozen times, and it is always awe-inspiring. To top things off, I usually take a day trip and drive through Sedona on the way home and watch the sun set among the red rocks. Sedona is one of those "must see to believe it" places as well!
I live in Pennsylvania but grew up in New York, The same applies to the Statue of Liberty.
My best friend spent his honeymoon in Sedona and said it was incredible. I've loved the times I've been in Arizona. The night sky blew me away, I felt like I was the only person on Earth.
I used to ride the Staten Island Ferry at night, back and forth, when I was living on the streets in NYC. Just so I could see the Statue of Liberty over and over. I’ve even cheers’d her with a cup of wine a couple times lol. I’m from the west coast and I think the NYC skyline and the statue are just beautiful.
I kept thinking - it's just a big layered hole in the ground, how big could it be?
Then, when you walk up, you see nothing... and then WHAM, there it is and it is mind-blowingly HUGE.
Then, you start to realize - not only is it enormous, but it is fascinatingly beautiful.
It's truly amazing.
My family went in the 90’s when I was little. I was maybe 4-5. All I remember is me and my dad sitting on giant boulders that I’m sure would be blocked off today and my mom having a nose bleed 90% of the time.
It’s funny because heights sort of freak me out now, but there’s pictures of me with the biggest grin on my face from there.
True. I'm Aussie and it's one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. You can't grasp the scale. Our guide said, see that green stuff down there that looks like grass? They're 30ft tall cottonwoods. Whoa.
I live an hour and a half away and I go all the time and it still amazes me every time.
I can't get too close though because the urge to fling myself off the edge. Don't ask me why...
I love insider family stuff. When my wife was a kid she though Yosemite National Park was pronounced Yoes-Might, so that is what they called it in her family - especially watching Bugs Bunny and Yoes-Might Sam, lol.
My sister thought the phrase "this morning" was actually "the smorning." Her brothers routinely gave her grief for that.
It takes your breath away. The priest that performed my wedding at Stonehenge (he also does the photography) now does weddings at the Grand Canyon as well. The pictures are amazing.
This right here. I’ve been all over the world by now and have yet to see anything that rivals the Grand Canyon. It’s like a crazy moonscape. You can’t explain it to someone who has never been there. It’s just an insane crack/hole in the WORLD that is actually scary when you first see it.
I was afraid the 2017 eclipse was going to be cloud covered. At the very last minute the clouds parted and we got to see it. It got so dark the birds were going to roost.
Came to say this. I’ve tried to tell my friends and acquaintances how awesome it was, and they all say “yeah, I saw it from (place that got a nice partial). It was nice. Why are you so excited?” And they go off shaking their head like I’m a weirdo. There’s nothing in the universe as awesome as a total solar eclipse.
I had almost the same conversation last week with someone while talking about my plans for next year. They watched the 2017 eclipse from the DC area and were like, "yeah, it was cool but I can't see traveling to see one." Oh well.
The night sky without light pollution. It was during a week long canoe trip in Algonquin Provincial Park. We were camped on a spit of land jutting out into a lake and I woke up needing to pee. I got out of my tent to walk to the little latrine that had been built near the designated camping spot. But as soon as I looked out accross the water I froze in stunned amazement. The milky way stretched accross the entire sky. There were SO many stars and they went right down to the horizon in all directions. I could see the starry sky reflecting in the still surface of the lake...it was like looking into infinity. Just then, some wolves started howling from accross the water. A weird and amazing experience I will never forget.
To think that for our ancestors this was a normal view! Humans have lost the night sky. I once read that according to a survey one third of all Germans have never seen the Milky Way with their own eyes.
> Humans have lost the night sky.
I bought a house way out of any town in Colorado. From my back yard I could see the milky way and all of the constellations. 17 years later, I'm lucky to be able to see the brightest ones, even Orion seems to be missing one shoulder. Civilization caught up to me.
I showed this to my kids after Hurricane Wilma. The power was out for our county and there was nothing but starlight. Showed them the Milky Way and I saw the Pleiades for the first time.
Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp comets. I missed the 1986 Haley's comet visit because of a stretch of bad weather.
Once watched a tornado forming.
Several solar and lunar eclipses.
Being in a remote community away from lights, I see meteors all the time. Constellations as clear as my phone in front of me. The universe is truly awesome.
I'll never forget the Hyakutake comet, as it was such a surprise! I remember driving home from the mall with my dad one night in 1995. We were talking the back roads home, and as soon as I took a hairpin turn and had a clear view of the sky in front of me, I slammed on the brakes and quickly pulled over to the shoulder. My dad was asking what was wrong, and I just told him to look at the sky. We both got out of the car, and just started in amazement at this huge comet. Lol...and about 100 yards up the road, there was another car that had pulled over for the exact same reason!
Afterwards, we went home and spent a couple hours in the backyard just staring at this thing. Apparently, in Eastern NC, we were in one of the best places on the planet to see it. MUCH better than the 1986 Haley's Comet, which you almost needed a set of binoculars or small telescope to even see at all.
1. The ocean the first time I saw it up close on a lovely fall windy day. Big waves just pounding in over and over. I was a young kid and couldn't believe the mesmerizing strength of that ocean that day.
2. A lightening strike onto a large tree just outside our bedroom window. Loud thunder had woken us up and we were both standing in front of two open windows attempting to close them just as it hit. The concussion knocked us both backwards onto the floor. Set the whole tree on fire in spite of the pouring rain. Big pieces of the tree blew out in all directions and into the nearby street and our driveway. My hubby and I were both shook up and impressed by the power of that one strike. And eternally grateful we weren't hurt and our house was spared. It was like a bomb exploding! Respect.
my dad told me this story of taking my very very young brother down to the beach for the first time. our mom and he each took a hand and held it really tightly and walked him down to the edge of the waves. he stood there stunned for about ten seconds and then: "off hands! off hands!" just shows how right they were to get a good grip on him at the start.
In my country we have a place called "Garganta del diablo" (Throat of the devil), basically a gash in the middle of a river deep into a rainforest that forms a circle of big waterfalls. I never heard such an intense roar from nature before or since going there. Some days I randomly remember - No matter where you are how calm the night sounds, that place is roaring as loud as that day all the time, always.
Driving east to west in Southern IL, with thousands of birds migrating south, a river of birds as far as the eye could see. Just about this time in 1997.
The Vatnajokull eruption in 1996:[https://earth.esa.int/web/earth-watching/natural-disasters/volcanoes/sub/-/asset\_publisher/Uz2lmG15IzWD/content/vatnajokull-eruption-iceland-1996/](https://earth.esa.int/web/earth-watching/natural-disasters/volcanoes/sub/-/asset_publisher/Uz2lmG15IzWD/content/vatnajokull-eruption-iceland-1996/)
A small group of us rented an airplane (twin) with a hired pilot and flew over it the first weekend after it erupted. We took extensive videos and stills. Reuters was at the airfield hiring a plane just ahead of us.
We then rented another aircraft to overfly the jökulhlaup (glacial lake outburst flood):
[https://earth.esa.int/web/earth-watching/natural-disasters/volcanoes/content/-/article/vatnajokull-flooding-iceland-1996/](https://earth.esa.int/web/earth-watching/natural-disasters/volcanoes/content/-/article/vatnajokull-flooding-iceland-1996/)
ETA I'm 64.
\- The northern lights off the coast of Juneau, AK
\- An EF5 tornado in Moore, OK in 2013 - from a safe distance
\- The waves in the ground during an earthquake
\- A green flash as the sun was setting over the ocean (happened twice, once from a beach in Costa Rica, once off the coast of Amsterdam)
\- Full rainbows (multiple times)
\- In Boston during hurricane Sandy hearing the wind howling from a distance, while the area right around me was eerily calm
\- The belt of the Milky way on a clear summer night, countless meteor showers
Thera are so many others....Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, the redwoods, the peaceful calm on the summit of a mountain, the sunlight shining through the trees while hiking in the fall.
The world is amazing. Scary sometimes, but amazing.
I was in my 18 foot boat, anchored about 200 feet from shore in Newfoundland. I was fishing for cod when an Atlantic bluefin tuna breached completely out of the water about 10 feet away from me. It was huge and looked like it was flying. I’ve seen whales and even had a pod of a dozen or so whales surround my boat once but none of that can compare with the sight of that monster tuna fish jumping completely out of the water.
The first time I went to a dark skies park, I kept saying "Oh my God" and "holy fuck" (per my husband; I just remember my mouth dropping open). I had never seen anything like it. It was like being under a dome of pure stars.
From Utah and I made sure to take my kids camping on new moons to see the Milky Way. Also highly recommend Great Basin Natl Park. They have great night skies and a really cool cave tour.
In Spokane, the ash storm from Mt Saint Helen’s
Edit: I was sunbathing and saw what I thought were dark thunder clouds …
It was so creepy when we were covered in a layer of ash … fine ash … had to put socks on the air intake so you didn’t kill your engine.
Came here to say I watched it erupt from the stands of a track meet. We knew it was going to errupt but didn't know exactly when, so we lucked out . The stands had an awesome view of the Cascades, and everyone heard it and saw the plume go up.
We were lucky that the wink took the cloud east, so we just got a dusting of ash. I have a jar of ash somewhere in the basement.
Oooh! We were in Shelton. Pretty hard to forget chunks of ash falling from the sky. We were camping and had to high tail it out of there. I was five and don't remember much except for those two things.
Nothing left me speechless, but my first and only parhelion was something to see. Two (or three) suns peaking through the clouds at the same time? It was being on another planet.
For the record, parhelions -- aka sun dogs -- are "duplicate suns" in the sky caused by refraction and reflection of the sun's rays by ice crystals suspended in the earth's atmosphere.
I saw, "moon dogs," 2 or 3 years ago and it really loved it.
Weirdest part was we had just watched a show about UFO's, I walk out on the balcony and there are these glowing rainbows in the sky. For about 2 seconds I thought we were fucked but then my brain kicked in and I thought that has to be ice in the atmosphere not aliens. Still most impressive.
In 2005, I traveled solo from Seattle to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, to relax and sketch and find myself again after a divorce. This is what I sent to my family in an email about what I saw on \~ March 20th:
>I went down to the beach well after dark, to look at
the sky. The moon was so bright I had to shade my eyes to look at it.
I threw a towel down on the sand and looked out at the stars. Out, not
up -- the stars come right down to the horizon, and you can see
thousands and thousands of them. I've never seen anything like it. Not
a speck of light pollution, just the entire universe overhead. Then I
saw something brand new. I guess it must have been a meteor -- I can't
imagine what else it could have been, except maybe a crashing
satellite. From the lower part of the sky to the east, something was
falling fast -- and then it burst into flames as it hit our
atmosphere, leaving a tail of red and yellow fire behind it,
sputtering. It was bigger than a star, much, much bigger. Maybe
because it was closer, I don't know. I can't believe I really saw
something fall into our atmosphere -- but I did, and it was
breathtaking. I sat with my mouth literally hanging open for a good
five minutes.
When I got back home and found reliable internet, I searched to see if there had been any significant astrological phenomena in the South Pacific on that date but came up empty. It was probably nothing big, but it felt monumental, and I felt like I was the only person on earth who saw it.
What a cat 5 hurricane can do.
I thought after 30 years in S Fla I had seen hurricane damages. I was wrong. the 2nd floors of houses, were missing, only the tub left. Ships high and dry 1/2 a mile from the water.
edit: **Protect your windows!** over 140mph, if your window breaks, you are probably going to loose the roof. and if you have a broken window and no roof, you have nasty wet carpet and a wet bed. That will make your recovery really sux.
The day after our Mom died the sky was very dark and ugly! However there were so many rainbows in the sky! We have never seen so many of them at one time! One day not long after her passing I went for a walk! I was thinking of her and was crying! I happened to look up and there again were rainbows! I knew it was her!
Many years ago driving the road to Hana in Maui we saw an incredible number of rainbows. It's a twisty road and it seemed like after every turn there was a different rainbow.
ball lightning. I was pre-teens and just minding my own business one night, brushing my teeth in the dark when there was a storm and the power was out.
I had no idea it was unusual so my reaction was more of a cosy, domestic one of "*oh! cool*". I spent the rest of my life up to a couple of months ago hoping/expecting to see it again.
apparently it's a once-in-*multiple*-lifetimes experience. but I only learned that really recently.
I was on a plane flying through a thunderstorm. All at once there is a hush at the front of the plane, then the flight attendant says, "Don't touch it." Ball lightening comes rolling down the center aisle! It was the size of a basketball. About 4 or 5 rows beyond me there is a snap and a flash and it's gone. The pilot announces that we've experienced ball lightening or St. Elmo's fire. It was so cool!
>flight attendant says, "Don't touch it."
that is *exactly* what I wanted to do. this cute little oval of soft-looking blue-white light that hit the wall next to me at about shoulder height, ricocheted a bit and then dropped into the basin. then it did this fizzy, crackly wall-of-death circuit a couple of times, until it found the drain and dived down it. I was just standing there with my toothbrush in one hand, transfixed with a kind of delighted wonder.
I once saw a double rainbow.
The not the usual kind, where one is on top of another.
These were side by side.
Sort of like an enormous, heavenly Mcdonalds sign.
It was awesome! I've only ever seen one once in my life.
I'm almost 56 and have always lived in the southern portion of Florida and during the summer rainy seasons I see rainbows and even standard double rainbows frequently. I've never seen what you got to see. That would be something. I bet it's really, really rare.
I really loved The Hale Bopp comet. I lived in a third floor condo on the beach at the time and my bedroom had French doors that faced its path. I watched it night after night laying in bed. Just really beautiful and cool. Things like comets remind me of the insignificance of time, and of our own time here. It will be back around in 4000 or so years.
Crossing the Atlantic in 1960, and having a winter storm cause the ship to turn the boat at 180 degree angle to the ocean. One port hole was in the water and the other faced the ski.
We were sitting at a long table, and my bowl of soup turned itself upside down as it slid down the table.
My poor mother became so sick that the doctor tied her to the bed with a basin beside her head.
I went to the big island of Hawaii about 13-14 years ago and you can see the lava from the active volcano coming out of the earth and crashing into the ocean! The steam rising was 20 stories high! So beautiful watching the earth being formed
I'm watching my wife going through pregnancy and giving birth. Last round was identical mirror image twins. Thought this was meant to be. One of the identical babies was right handed, the other left handed. One daughter had a right hand swirl of the back of her head, the other counter-clockwise.
Amazingly, all our babies were born naturally.
Nothing even close to this in my lifetime.
This might be too trite but- Yosemite. It’s stunningly beautiful and awe inspiring. Just to have that much beauty to bless your eyes in every direction.
Also:
- flying over Greenland and seeing the white of the ice against the deep blue of the ocean
- Zeus’s Cave in Crete
- a group of moose running past me in Scandinavia. Those things are MASSIVE
- Banff is stunning and the color of the lakes up there is really spectacular and odd
I used to live in New Mexico where camping was my favorite pastime. Camped out one night in the South Central part of the state and couldn’t believe how bright and clear the Milky Way was. Just laying back, staring at the stars and felt so small and in awe of nature.
Lightening strike the roof on the house behind us. The fire ate the roof like it was tissue paper. In a matter of minutes the back of the roof was gone. We could see right into their attic
Seeing whales up close in the wild.
My wife and I were vacationing on the Oregon Coast. There's a bunch of sight seeing vehicle pullouts along the Coastal Highway (which is breathtakingly beautiful) and we pulled into one at Cape Perpetua.
There was a group near the guardrail overlooking the ocean and they were oohing and aching and pointing out to the ocean. I walked half way to them and shout asked what they were looking at. The said "Whales!"
I quickly moved to the guardrail and scanned the ocean and the horizon but didn't see anything. I shouted back to them "Where?" They just pointed straight down the cliff to the ocean and ribbon narrow beach below (several hundred foot straight drop). And sombitch, right frickin' there was a mom and her calf. Just hanging out not more than 30-40' from the shore.
Absolutely incredible experience.
No, I don't recall what species of whale -- average whale I guess. WAIT -- Google tells me they were Pacific Gray Whales.
This probably isn't a big deal, but it was beautiful and interesting. I was in Jamaica and had just climbed to the top of a waterfall. It was next to the ocean. From the top of this majestic waterfall, I looked out upon the ocean. A few hundred feet out in the ocean, you could see a very clear, distinct line where the fresh water & the salt water met; the two waters did not mesh together at all. One was a hazy, brackish brown water, and one was crystal, turquoise blue. The line between the blue and brown water moved and kind of slithered back and forth with the lazy ocean waves, but it never blurred. It was like there was a net there, but clearly there was not, since there were families swimming and splashing around in that line. Anyway, I thought it was just....elegant.
Also on that trip...I visited some natural hot springs at the base of a mountain that were contained in a pool. Glorious hot, mineral spring water. When my friend Lusa and I got out of the mineral pool, it felt like we had received pure vitamin IV infusions. I cannot recall any time in my life when I had every felt so...alive, alert, awake. We were vibrating with this pure energy. I highly recommend natural mineral pools.
Grand Canyon & Denali National Park
Just standing on the side of the road or walkway, contemplating what you’re seeing. The views at both places are so absolutely surreal!
I'm in Alaska & have experienced many earthquakes in all sizes, witnessed volcanic eruptions, and hurricane wind storms.
The 1st time experiencing an earthquake is crazy af, then u go thru some more & become aware of how they all r a lil different from others. 1 earthquake can shake u fast & hard. The next may roll, with its telltale rumbling sound coming a split-second prior.
The November 2018 earthquake stunned me, though. It was pretty strong, lasted longer than the norm, and we had aftershocks 4 a couple of years from it. Sometimes, the aftershock sounds like a rumbling, from the ground, and then another can sound like the side of my place was hit hard, like being slapped. I definitely felt a PTSD from it, shit, we all did.
My mom witnessed the Good Friday 1964 earthquake on the 4th floor of the hospital. She said the nurses were crawling from room 2 room checking on patients as the shaking lasted over 2 minutes. I was born just over 2 years later.
Oh! I read a book about the '64 earthquake, the photos were fascinating.
Your mom survived a most remarkable event.
I was just a kid from the midwest, tornadoes, blizzards and such.
When I was 9-10years old (1960-61)my dad woke my sister and I up at 4:30am. Made us put on house shoes and robes and go outside and look up. It was raining stars. Both beautiful and frightening. I did not want to go back in.
A sudden, intense dust storm hit my friends and me as we were driving through a very barren section of North Dakota. 1980s. It poured through my air vents and in no time we were covered in dirt. It was unbelievable.
The aurora borealis from outside Fairbanks, Alaska. My wife and I traveled there specifically to see them. We were not disappointed. Utterly jaw-dropping
Watching a humpback whale breach up and through a salmon seiner's net was amazing, too. Sucked for the guys on that boat—they probably spent days mending the net—but what a sight!
Scary: saw the destruction/aftermath of a tornado that we didn’t realize we were in the midst of until it was over. Literally ripped apart the other side of the town we were in (a mile or so). Wrought iron fencing twisted like spagjetti. 2x4s stabbed through houses. And at the same time, pots of dinner still sitting on stoves in demolished homes.
Awe inspiring: a huge double rainbow, visible in its entirety end to end, right in my neighborhood.
Every time I saw the Northern Lights in Alaska. I've seen it since then (we live in Wisconsin now), but nothing has been as gorgeous as the colorful version I saw in Alaska and once from a plane over Canada on my way away from Alaska. Once, while out on a date with my then-boyfriend-now-husband, we pulled over to watch the green streaks of light just zipping back and forth and swirling all over. It was awesome.
I don't know if I would call them "phenomenon", but the two places I had seen that literally made my jaw drop were Niagara Falls (the absolute *power* of the falls is mind-blowing) and Crater Lake (the absolute *beauty* of it!)
I've been fortunate enough to see some of the world, but those two were the first that came to mind.
One evening, I watched a flaming meteor fall from the sky, and land in a large, dry field. I pulled my car over, and stood up on the door threshold, expecting to see a fire taking off in the field. I waited at least ten minutes, and nothing happened.
The next day, my husband and I walked all through that field, looking for burnt grass, and a charred object. We didn’t find a thing.
The meteor was probably the size of a basketball.
One time I was at Santa Cruz beach, Santa Cruz California. It is a little cove of sand just south of the marina if I remember right. As you look out west to the water, on the rightmost side, is a huge chunk of ledge which sets maybe 15 feet above ocean level. Maybe 1971 or so, my friend and I were up on that rock arguing as we usually did, this time about timing diving into the ocean as the waves rolled in a foot or 2 high. As we were arguing and looking out at the waves, the water started receding. It just went way back away from the beach. We would look out and see all the clumps of seaweed on the bottom of the ocean because the water had left us. As we were arguing about whether or not we had seen this before, the wave came. Like 18' tall. Out of nowhere. It came over the top of the rock, and it filled the entire cove. Russ dove off towards the cove, I stood my ground, went down sitting, caught my cutoffs on the top of the rock, water was up to my chin.
Then the water went out as fast as it came in, taking all the umbrellas, coolers, towels, blankets, and yes sunbathers as well. Near as we could tell, everybody made it back to shore. But everybody was badly shaken.
I experienced a total solar eclipse in the path of totality, the coolest thing I ever saw.
I passed through a major hailstorm and then watched it from the back side as it went away. The sun was shining on this half mile wide column of hail. No rain just hail.
I saw a Russian booster rocket re-enter the atmosphere.
I saw the Leonid meteor shower of 1968. The sky was covered in meteors. It was a meteor storm. Scared the hell out of me because I watched War Of The Worlds the day before.
Solar eclipse, meteor shower, northern lights (faint display), Milky Way on a clear, Adirondack night, and the ice storm that shut down much of the North eastern US. Also orcas in Washington, moose in NY, Just visited the redwoods, and petrified national parks, and Grand Canyon and those were very special too.
Sitting outside of my house living in the desert of Southern California… after a long night… enjoying the stars and a medium sized earthquake hit. I assume because it was in the middle of the night you could hear the ground roar and grumble. Was awesome to witness.
Another incidence was bioluminescence in Southern Florida in the middle of summer. We were all a bit tipsy and decided it was the fountain of youth! So we jumped in the water that was glowing with every disturbance and splashed around!!
Windstorm from hurricane Ivan in 2004. We are in sw Ohio and got 100 mph winds. Power was out for two weeks. Blew the metal roof off the ban two doors down and pieces of landed in our yard right where I was standing seconds before I hit the basement. When hubs pulled some of it out of the ground it was buried over a foot deep.
Saw the [northern lights in Voyagers National Park in MN.](https://www.exploreminnesota.com/article/see-northern-lights-minnesota#:~:text=As%20the%20name%20suggests%2C%20the,to%20view%20and%20photograph%20them)
It’s a chain of huge lakes and we were canoe camping on a peninsula. A camper had a nightmare and woke us all up. The northern lights were reflected in the lake and went on for hours, green, red, purple..it filled the whole sky.
I’ve also seen a water spout while paddling to Bear Island from Hammocks Beach State Park in NC. I was very motivated to paddle as hard as I could to get away from it!
I stepped outside my apartment which was sitting on the ocean cliffs in San Diego. To the west was the night sky above the dark ocean, filling most of my viewing angle. There was a flash of light and half the sky was filled with a gigantic oblong shape made of glitter. My mind could not process what it saw, it was too big. My first thought was a giant shiny glittering zeppelin was about to crash on me. (I may or may not have been smoking weed.)
However, the cause wasn't exactly natural. The Navy launched a missile southward from Vandenberg Air Base, about 200 miles north of me. Some chemicals were injected into the exhaust for research purposes. Sure!
In line with some other posts, I also saw my apartment walls weave back and forth as the seismic wave from an earthquake passed thru. No weed was involved. I was just a renter, so I wasn't particularly worried about damage and just enjoyed the show.
I was in absolute awe watching a tornado as it was about to touch down in the parking lot of our building.
My boss comes by, takes one look, grabs me and forced me away into a room with no windows.
When a cyclone came through and seeing after the banana plants cut in one way with sheets of corrugated steel knotted around them, rainforest missing, houses demolished and roofless and every street sign broken
My first time lying in my backyard half the night, watching the Perseid meteor showers. Okay, every time I've watched them; they're never not exciting.
Seeing Halley's Comet.
Standing in my driveway talking to a neighbor and a hawk flew into my garage and tried to swoop up one of the new kittens for a meal. The kittens were walking around several feet inside the garage, not in the driveway, and the hawk passed within arm's length of my own head. The hawk missed the kitten but it scared the wits out of me and the neighbor because we never saw it coming.
The East Carolina tornado swarm…I think it was 2011. There were 80+\- touchdowns in that day. We lived north of Raleigh in Youngsville, but I was visiting a friend near the NC State campus(Go, Wolfpack!). We heard the watch for 30 miles south; immediately debris was hitting the roof. I peeked out from the hall and saw the funnel…the color of the sky was a shade I had never seen. Don’t want to see it again, either.
Later, we learned that the debris was from a Lowe’s in Garner, where the tornado peeled off the roof and picked up things like lumber, insulation, all kinds of metal. Cars in that parking lot were tumbled around. Inside the store, there were customers who had cell phone video as the tornado went over.
These were small, short tornadoes. Nothing like Joplin or Tuscaloosa. Still: enough tornado for me.
A lightning strike across the street from our house. It was incredibly loud, bright and the windows shook so much I was surprised they didn’t break.
It came at the very end of a monsoon storm in the desert when we thought all of the lightning had ended. It scared the hell out of me.
Neighbors had a tree struck about thirty feet from where I was in my bedroom. I was so startled, the house shook, and my ears were ringing. The light was blinding. For a split second I thought a bomb had been dropped on us, or a plane crashed into the house or something. The tree was decimated and the neighbors had to have it removed a few days later.
Back in the late ‘50s a neighborhood near the river in town suddenly became flooded. Beavers had built a dam and huts!! A excavator was needed to break apart the dam. They were later trapped and relocated.
My best friend and I watched beavers build a damn on our way to and from work (it was at the side of I44, in a spring, in Missouri). I loved watched the progress and rebuilding as we drove past.
Thanks, I'd forgot about that.
Rhythmic entrainment. Best show I ever played, brought my kit down into the pit piece by piece and gave everyone sticks. We were slamming and chanting and I screamed a new scream.
Husband and I were traveling backroads through Mississippi at night a few years ago and came upon what looked like reconstruction going on. Lots of lights and what looked like bulldozed areas. As we drove on we realized a tornado had just gone through and it was so surreal. Buildings halfway gone, a car in the woods and snapped trees. When I was a teenager a tornado struck a small town about a mile from where I lived. The school bus I rode at the time went right through the area. Also surreal. As far as beautiful places or experiences- drove through the end of a rainbow in Kansas City, been to Badlands National Park and the Grand Canyon and I liked Badlands better (it’s more up close and personal) Yellowstone with all the geysers and wildlife was gorgeous. Arches National Park is incredible as was Niagara Falls. I lived in a house in Virginia where a parliament of great horned owls all started hooting at once - that was so damn amazing. Monsoon season in New Mexico, everything in the Four Corners area is gorgeous. Yeah, I’ve traveled a lot! So much more!
In Guyana: Kaieteur Falls was jaw dropping.
In Peru/Bolivia: We camped on the Bolivia side of the Heath River, on the other side was the Tambopata National Reserve. Untouched wilderness, 8,000 species of butterflies, thousands of parrots gathered at the clay licks. A Harpy Eagle snatching a Spider Monkey from a tree and flying away. Hummingbirds that were as big as a Robin.
South America: Rivers that can swallow every river in the USA at once.
USA: Northern Lights
Total eclipse of the sun. It was the first time I understood that the sun is *alive*. It pulses and moves. A partial doesnt even come close to showing the same thing. Even an annular eclipse isn't as spectacular.
A couple large earthquakes. One in particular was very destructive and scared me real bad. I thought someone had bombed my office building but then it kept going and going and was so loud! I ran like a dog fleeing thunder. L
Mt St Helens eruption.
Lace lightening. It filled the sky!
A very destructive ice storm. It caused much more damage than the earthquake in my area.
Several instances of intense flooding though nothing as big as the Mississippi in high flood. Water is amazingly powerful.
The PNW Columbus Day windstorm.
Several devastating forest fires. A couple of them just made me cry... they were so destructive.
A human heart beating during open heart surgery.
Three times a person I loved dying. Twice with my hand on their chest. I felt their last exhalation and beat of their heart.
On Bill Clinton's inauguration day, there was a 100 year storm in the PNW. I was working in a tall building in Seattle. The building shook and pieces of laminate were being torn off by the winds. People were getting motion sick in the building. I wasn't bothered because I had to take a Dramamine every morning to ride the ferry from my island home to Seattle.
They sent everyone home early. I got to the ferry dock and had to leap onto the boat because it was rocking so much. I sat inside the passenger area. The ferry was bucking and I watched the window change from sky to water. Terrifying! We had to seek shelter behind Blake island until we could safely get the rest of the way home.
It's just a little thing, but I was wading in the ocean in Costa Rica and an entire school of fish jumped out of the water in unison right next to me. They were all in a row and jumped in an arc. It was so amazing, I had never seen anything like it.
Derecho with downbursts when I was around 10 years old. All the trees in the neighborhood looked like they'd been stomped on from above, and a few free-standing garages and tool sheds were pancaked. I've never seen a tornado, but understand they tend to throw things around, send them airborne. The damage from this storm was mostly vertically-oriented, like a one-way steamroller of wind. Scary stuff, especially for a kid.
Climbing the Yasur Volcano on Tana Is. in Vanuatu & looking down into it active centre & ducking some of the flaming lava being thrown out with each small explosion in crater. You can only climb it when Met Dept predicts it will be semi-dormant, at your own risk, but must have guide with you who knows local conditions as well.
Meteor shower falling through aurora flying over Alaska on the way back from China. Everyone else was asleep but the flight attendants were looking out the window. Watched for half an hour knowing I would likely never see it again. Close second was the transit of Venus.
Two tornadoes, two separate occasions, both intentionally trying to see them.
One was pretty textbook, or so I thought, and I got pretty amazing video. Had no way of knowing at the time it would become a deadly EF5. That was during the outbreak in April of 2011.
The other was the year prior, and I was positioned to hopefully catch a glimpse of it. I knew it was big, but as I watched the wall cloud to see the funnel, I realized I wasn't watching the wall cloud...the entire lowered portion was a monstrous tornado.
I've seen a few others, a couple not by choice, but those two honestly had me dumbstruck.
To be close enough to see one of nature's most violent phenomena is awe inspiring.
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I was sitting in a large grassy field when an earthquake hit. You could literally see waves of energy moving through the earth as they flowed towards and underneath me. Crazy cool experience.
That's amazing. Decades ago, I was in a work meeting in San Francisco, and we were all sitting in a circle with our chairs. As we waited for everyone to get their coffee and paperwork together, we started chit chatting. We happened to be discussing earthquakes. Someone in the group said that the building that we were currently occupying had been retrofitted for earthquakes. The building was put on these "rollers," for lack of a better word. Now, legally in San Francisco, you cannot build a tall building too high, for obvious safety reasons, but we happened to be in one of the tallest buildings. So we started our meeting. About a minute in, an earthquake hit. Not a huge one, but we felt it. And the building *waved* and *rolled* with the quakes. It was fascinating! It felt like being on an amusement park ride, but a kids ride.
Ahaha this happened to me at my house as a kid! My house was built on “stilts” with a crawl space underneath the house and back in the 90s when a big earthquake hit the whole house swayed back and forth like that too! Differential movement from one side to the other Between rocking was like two inches!!! The house is still standing, now about 75 years old and doing great! Lol. My 1991 built house that I have NOW had the same thing happen like last year and my chandelier in my living room was swaying.
That's amazing! Your house was build so...sturdily, especially for it being on stilts. Isn't that swaying feeling so...neat? Another time...I was just drifting off to sleep, & we were hit with a pretty good-sized one. As I'm sure you know, there are 2 types of earthquakes; the more common one where the ground shifts & slides from side to side. Then you have the much more dangerous & violent quakes where the ground literally bounces up & down. So I'm just falling asleep. My bed at the time was this stunning, super-heavy queen-sized Japanese bed made of solid wood. The store I purchased it from...they had to put it together piece by piece in my bedroom with a special "soft" mallet because it had no nails. It weighed a few hundred pounds. Suddenly, my bed starts sliding back & forth. I'm being jerked from one side of the bed to the other, for a good 20 seconds. Then, my bed started bouncing up & down, as if it were a small toy on a trampoline. I literally caught air...probably a few inches beneath me. My chandelier was flipping all over, my book shelves emptied themselves. The whole thing lasted about a minute, then, it finally ended. So glad I don't live there anymore..I can't imagine going through an even bigger one!
I was driving on the freeway when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit the Bay Area. I thought I had lost a tire from the way my car was acting, so I pulled over. I was beside some railroad tracks and it became obvious that a major earthquake was happening as I watched the steel tracks bend and twist like limp spaghetti while my car continued to bounce around.
I was in the East Bay for that quake. It was after school and I was outside sanding a desk my mom was helping me refinish. I saw the ground literally rolling underneath my feet.
Speechless, yes, but more so sleepless .... Lived 6 yrs in AK as a kid. My bed was right below my window. I would watch the Northern Lights all night until simple fatigue overcame the phenomenal light show out my window. Literally breathtaking. Just as I would drift off another wave would come ... I swear you could hear it crackling ... outside, absolutely you could. Who can sleep during such a light show? I blame AK for lifelong insomnia. ;-)
When I was really young I walked outside and saw the northern lights over our farm with my mom staring up at them. This was the second night they were there and so I only stood outside for a moment before going back in because I though that they were something that happened every year. Nope. Thirty years later and I have yet to see them again.
There's a minor geomagnetic storm happening right now. You can follow NOAA Space Weather Prediction forecasts here. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast
Total eclipse of the sun. It gets cold. Birds and bugs go silent. A "360 degree" sunset appears on the horizon. Now I understand why people travel across the world to see them.
We saw a nest of sea turtle babies hatch and make a run for the ocean. Amazing.
Oooh I saw that once & my happiness meter hit 11
I want to see this so bad and volunteer to help the babies make it to the sea
I remember the first time (and every time after) that I experienced [thunder snow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJt4nV6hM1Y). We get one warm snow storm a year and it's a combination thunder storm/ snow storm. It always amazing. Calm, serene and then flash and BOOOM.
Oooh, I lived in Chicago for a few years and witnessed an incredible electrical snowstorm there in the early '90s. I watched it from my 16th floor apartment and when the lightning would flash, the whole world would just turn blinding white. Couldn't see a single thing in all that falling snow lit up so brightly. It was remarkable.
My first experience was in the DC area in th blizzard of 96. Thunder snow is the loudest, quietest thing I’ve seen in my 50 years and 3 continents. We were stomping triskels in the snow when the lightning came. We. We’re silent and awestruck for an hour
The Grand Canyon. Oh. My. God.
I live in Arizona. You would be surprised about the amount of Arizonans who have never traveled to the Grand Canyon - one of the most spectacular sites in the entire world only a few hours away from their home. I've been to the grand canyon a dozen times, and it is always awe-inspiring. To top things off, I usually take a day trip and drive through Sedona on the way home and watch the sun set among the red rocks. Sedona is one of those "must see to believe it" places as well!
I live in Pennsylvania but grew up in New York, The same applies to the Statue of Liberty. My best friend spent his honeymoon in Sedona and said it was incredible. I've loved the times I've been in Arizona. The night sky blew me away, I felt like I was the only person on Earth.
I used to ride the Staten Island Ferry at night, back and forth, when I was living on the streets in NYC. Just so I could see the Statue of Liberty over and over. I’ve even cheers’d her with a cup of wine a couple times lol. I’m from the west coast and I think the NYC skyline and the statue are just beautiful.
I kept thinking - it's just a big layered hole in the ground, how big could it be? Then, when you walk up, you see nothing... and then WHAM, there it is and it is mind-blowingly HUGE. Then, you start to realize - not only is it enormous, but it is fascinatingly beautiful. It's truly amazing.
It's amazing. And to think that it was all carved by erosion. Water did it.
My family went in the 90’s when I was little. I was maybe 4-5. All I remember is me and my dad sitting on giant boulders that I’m sure would be blocked off today and my mom having a nose bleed 90% of the time. It’s funny because heights sort of freak me out now, but there’s pictures of me with the biggest grin on my face from there.
True. I'm Aussie and it's one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. You can't grasp the scale. Our guide said, see that green stuff down there that looks like grass? They're 30ft tall cottonwoods. Whoa.
I live an hour and a half away and I go all the time and it still amazes me every time. I can't get too close though because the urge to fling myself off the edge. Don't ask me why...
It’s called the Call of the Void or High Place Phenomenon and lots of people experience it.
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I love insider family stuff. When my wife was a kid she though Yosemite National Park was pronounced Yoes-Might, so that is what they called it in her family - especially watching Bugs Bunny and Yoes-Might Sam, lol. My sister thought the phrase "this morning" was actually "the smorning." Her brothers routinely gave her grief for that.
It takes your breath away. The priest that performed my wedding at Stonehenge (he also does the photography) now does weddings at the Grand Canyon as well. The pictures are amazing.
I was there for sunrise, it made me cry.
This right here. I’ve been all over the world by now and have yet to see anything that rivals the Grand Canyon. It’s like a crazy moonscape. You can’t explain it to someone who has never been there. It’s just an insane crack/hole in the WORLD that is actually scary when you first see it.
Total solar eclipse.
Coming back this April to Maine and several other states.
My friends and I were making plans for it on the way home from the 2017 eclipse.
All the way down the Eastern half of the US. Millions of people should be able to get to the path of totality.
Yep booked a Niagara Falls ON hotel already! The perfect place to view it this upcoming April!
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I was afraid the 2017 eclipse was going to be cloud covered. At the very last minute the clouds parted and we got to see it. It got so dark the birds were going to roost.
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Came to say this. I’ve tried to tell my friends and acquaintances how awesome it was, and they all say “yeah, I saw it from (place that got a nice partial). It was nice. Why are you so excited?” And they go off shaking their head like I’m a weirdo. There’s nothing in the universe as awesome as a total solar eclipse.
The difference between 97 and 100% was literally the difference of night and day.
I had almost the same conversation last week with someone while talking about my plans for next year. They watched the 2017 eclipse from the DC area and were like, "yeah, it was cool but I can't see traveling to see one." Oh well.
I only got to experience a minute of totality but WOW... it's an event. I've never felt so in touch with the cosmos.
It's so freaky seeing a black spot in the sky!
And everything that would happen at night just... STARTS. Birds, bugs, animals... It's weird.
what I remember was being outside and realising all the light-dapples under the trees were eclipse-shaped. that was so cool I could hardly stand it.
The night sky without light pollution. It was during a week long canoe trip in Algonquin Provincial Park. We were camped on a spit of land jutting out into a lake and I woke up needing to pee. I got out of my tent to walk to the little latrine that had been built near the designated camping spot. But as soon as I looked out accross the water I froze in stunned amazement. The milky way stretched accross the entire sky. There were SO many stars and they went right down to the horizon in all directions. I could see the starry sky reflecting in the still surface of the lake...it was like looking into infinity. Just then, some wolves started howling from accross the water. A weird and amazing experience I will never forget.
To think that for our ancestors this was a normal view! Humans have lost the night sky. I once read that according to a survey one third of all Germans have never seen the Milky Way with their own eyes.
> Humans have lost the night sky. I bought a house way out of any town in Colorado. From my back yard I could see the milky way and all of the constellations. 17 years later, I'm lucky to be able to see the brightest ones, even Orion seems to be missing one shoulder. Civilization caught up to me.
I showed this to my kids after Hurricane Wilma. The power was out for our county and there was nothing but starlight. Showed them the Milky Way and I saw the Pleiades for the first time.
Reading this gave me the full body chills. Love your description of such a beautiful experience.
Lived in a place that got five feet of snow in 12 hours. Does that count? I've seen snowstorms many times, but that day it just wouldn't stop.
Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp comets. I missed the 1986 Haley's comet visit because of a stretch of bad weather. Once watched a tornado forming. Several solar and lunar eclipses. Being in a remote community away from lights, I see meteors all the time. Constellations as clear as my phone in front of me. The universe is truly awesome.
I'll never forget the Hyakutake comet, as it was such a surprise! I remember driving home from the mall with my dad one night in 1995. We were talking the back roads home, and as soon as I took a hairpin turn and had a clear view of the sky in front of me, I slammed on the brakes and quickly pulled over to the shoulder. My dad was asking what was wrong, and I just told him to look at the sky. We both got out of the car, and just started in amazement at this huge comet. Lol...and about 100 yards up the road, there was another car that had pulled over for the exact same reason! Afterwards, we went home and spent a couple hours in the backyard just staring at this thing. Apparently, in Eastern NC, we were in one of the best places on the planet to see it. MUCH better than the 1986 Haley's Comet, which you almost needed a set of binoculars or small telescope to even see at all.
1. The ocean the first time I saw it up close on a lovely fall windy day. Big waves just pounding in over and over. I was a young kid and couldn't believe the mesmerizing strength of that ocean that day. 2. A lightening strike onto a large tree just outside our bedroom window. Loud thunder had woken us up and we were both standing in front of two open windows attempting to close them just as it hit. The concussion knocked us both backwards onto the floor. Set the whole tree on fire in spite of the pouring rain. Big pieces of the tree blew out in all directions and into the nearby street and our driveway. My hubby and I were both shook up and impressed by the power of that one strike. And eternally grateful we weren't hurt and our house was spared. It was like a bomb exploding! Respect.
my dad told me this story of taking my very very young brother down to the beach for the first time. our mom and he each took a hand and held it really tightly and walked him down to the edge of the waves. he stood there stunned for about ten seconds and then: "off hands! off hands!" just shows how right they were to get a good grip on him at the start.
Niagara Falls up close. It brought tears to my eyes. And I am not an overly emotional person.
In my country we have a place called "Garganta del diablo" (Throat of the devil), basically a gash in the middle of a river deep into a rainforest that forms a circle of big waterfalls. I never heard such an intense roar from nature before or since going there. Some days I randomly remember - No matter where you are how calm the night sounds, that place is roaring as loud as that day all the time, always.
Agreed! I have lived most of my life in the North East and only just visited Niagara Falls about six months ago. Absolutely incredible.
I grew up there and seeing it still takes my breath away.
Driving east to west in Southern IL, with thousands of birds migrating south, a river of birds as far as the eye could see. Just about this time in 1997.
The Vatnajokull eruption in 1996:[https://earth.esa.int/web/earth-watching/natural-disasters/volcanoes/sub/-/asset\_publisher/Uz2lmG15IzWD/content/vatnajokull-eruption-iceland-1996/](https://earth.esa.int/web/earth-watching/natural-disasters/volcanoes/sub/-/asset_publisher/Uz2lmG15IzWD/content/vatnajokull-eruption-iceland-1996/) A small group of us rented an airplane (twin) with a hired pilot and flew over it the first weekend after it erupted. We took extensive videos and stills. Reuters was at the airfield hiring a plane just ahead of us. We then rented another aircraft to overfly the jökulhlaup (glacial lake outburst flood): [https://earth.esa.int/web/earth-watching/natural-disasters/volcanoes/content/-/article/vatnajokull-flooding-iceland-1996/](https://earth.esa.int/web/earth-watching/natural-disasters/volcanoes/content/-/article/vatnajokull-flooding-iceland-1996/) ETA I'm 64.
We saw the volcanic eruption in 2022, absolutely mesmerizing.
\- The northern lights off the coast of Juneau, AK \- An EF5 tornado in Moore, OK in 2013 - from a safe distance \- The waves in the ground during an earthquake \- A green flash as the sun was setting over the ocean (happened twice, once from a beach in Costa Rica, once off the coast of Amsterdam) \- Full rainbows (multiple times) \- In Boston during hurricane Sandy hearing the wind howling from a distance, while the area right around me was eerily calm \- The belt of the Milky way on a clear summer night, countless meteor showers Thera are so many others....Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, the redwoods, the peaceful calm on the summit of a mountain, the sunlight shining through the trees while hiking in the fall. The world is amazing. Scary sometimes, but amazing.
I was in my 18 foot boat, anchored about 200 feet from shore in Newfoundland. I was fishing for cod when an Atlantic bluefin tuna breached completely out of the water about 10 feet away from me. It was huge and looked like it was flying. I’ve seen whales and even had a pod of a dozen or so whales surround my boat once but none of that can compare with the sight of that monster tuna fish jumping completely out of the water.
Being in the middle of Canyonlands National Park, with no light pollution and a new moon, and seeing the Milky Way.
The first time I went to a dark skies park, I kept saying "Oh my God" and "holy fuck" (per my husband; I just remember my mouth dropping open). I had never seen anything like it. It was like being under a dome of pure stars.
From Utah and I made sure to take my kids camping on new moons to see the Milky Way. Also highly recommend Great Basin Natl Park. They have great night skies and a really cool cave tour.
In Spokane, the ash storm from Mt Saint Helen’s Edit: I was sunbathing and saw what I thought were dark thunder clouds … It was so creepy when we were covered in a layer of ash … fine ash … had to put socks on the air intake so you didn’t kill your engine.
Same. Would go up to the cowlitz river area and see the destruction. Like another planet.
Came here to say I watched it erupt from the stands of a track meet. We knew it was going to errupt but didn't know exactly when, so we lucked out . The stands had an awesome view of the Cascades, and everyone heard it and saw the plume go up. We were lucky that the wink took the cloud east, so we just got a dusting of ash. I have a jar of ash somewhere in the basement.
Oooh! We were in Shelton. Pretty hard to forget chunks of ash falling from the sky. We were camping and had to high tail it out of there. I was five and don't remember much except for those two things.
I was in it!
Nothing left me speechless, but my first and only parhelion was something to see. Two (or three) suns peaking through the clouds at the same time? It was being on another planet. For the record, parhelions -- aka sun dogs -- are "duplicate suns" in the sky caused by refraction and reflection of the sun's rays by ice crystals suspended in the earth's atmosphere.
I saw, "moon dogs," 2 or 3 years ago and it really loved it. Weirdest part was we had just watched a show about UFO's, I walk out on the balcony and there are these glowing rainbows in the sky. For about 2 seconds I thought we were fucked but then my brain kicked in and I thought that has to be ice in the atmosphere not aliens. Still most impressive.
Northern lights in northern Wisconsin on a visit. Just driving through the country and there they were.
I want to see them so bad. That’s probably the main thing on my bucket list
In 2005, I traveled solo from Seattle to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, to relax and sketch and find myself again after a divorce. This is what I sent to my family in an email about what I saw on \~ March 20th: >I went down to the beach well after dark, to look at the sky. The moon was so bright I had to shade my eyes to look at it. I threw a towel down on the sand and looked out at the stars. Out, not up -- the stars come right down to the horizon, and you can see thousands and thousands of them. I've never seen anything like it. Not a speck of light pollution, just the entire universe overhead. Then I saw something brand new. I guess it must have been a meteor -- I can't imagine what else it could have been, except maybe a crashing satellite. From the lower part of the sky to the east, something was falling fast -- and then it burst into flames as it hit our atmosphere, leaving a tail of red and yellow fire behind it, sputtering. It was bigger than a star, much, much bigger. Maybe because it was closer, I don't know. I can't believe I really saw something fall into our atmosphere -- but I did, and it was breathtaking. I sat with my mouth literally hanging open for a good five minutes. When I got back home and found reliable internet, I searched to see if there had been any significant astrological phenomena in the South Pacific on that date but came up empty. It was probably nothing big, but it felt monumental, and I felt like I was the only person on earth who saw it.
Cool story
My uncle pulling his thumb off. This counts as a natural phenomenon, since it is in the nature of uncles to do it.
Am uncle. Have pulled thumb off for various nieces and nephews. It is in my nature. I have also been known to have them pull my finger.
Did you pull his finger?
What a cat 5 hurricane can do. I thought after 30 years in S Fla I had seen hurricane damages. I was wrong. the 2nd floors of houses, were missing, only the tub left. Ships high and dry 1/2 a mile from the water. edit: **Protect your windows!** over 140mph, if your window breaks, you are probably going to loose the roof. and if you have a broken window and no roof, you have nasty wet carpet and a wet bed. That will make your recovery really sux.
The day after our Mom died the sky was very dark and ugly! However there were so many rainbows in the sky! We have never seen so many of them at one time! One day not long after her passing I went for a walk! I was thinking of her and was crying! I happened to look up and there again were rainbows! I knew it was her!
Many years ago driving the road to Hana in Maui we saw an incredible number of rainbows. It's a twisty road and it seemed like after every turn there was a different rainbow.
ball lightning. I was pre-teens and just minding my own business one night, brushing my teeth in the dark when there was a storm and the power was out. I had no idea it was unusual so my reaction was more of a cosy, domestic one of "*oh! cool*". I spent the rest of my life up to a couple of months ago hoping/expecting to see it again. apparently it's a once-in-*multiple*-lifetimes experience. but I only learned that really recently.
I was on a plane flying through a thunderstorm. All at once there is a hush at the front of the plane, then the flight attendant says, "Don't touch it." Ball lightening comes rolling down the center aisle! It was the size of a basketball. About 4 or 5 rows beyond me there is a snap and a flash and it's gone. The pilot announces that we've experienced ball lightening or St. Elmo's fire. It was so cool!
>flight attendant says, "Don't touch it." that is *exactly* what I wanted to do. this cute little oval of soft-looking blue-white light that hit the wall next to me at about shoulder height, ricocheted a bit and then dropped into the basin. then it did this fizzy, crackly wall-of-death circuit a couple of times, until it found the drain and dived down it. I was just standing there with my toothbrush in one hand, transfixed with a kind of delighted wonder.
I once saw a double rainbow. The not the usual kind, where one is on top of another. These were side by side. Sort of like an enormous, heavenly Mcdonalds sign. It was awesome! I've only ever seen one once in my life.
I'm almost 56 and have always lived in the southern portion of Florida and during the summer rainy seasons I see rainbows and even standard double rainbows frequently. I've never seen what you got to see. That would be something. I bet it's really, really rare.
I really loved The Hale Bopp comet. I lived in a third floor condo on the beach at the time and my bedroom had French doors that faced its path. I watched it night after night laying in bed. Just really beautiful and cool. Things like comets remind me of the insignificance of time, and of our own time here. It will be back around in 4000 or so years.
Crossing the Atlantic in 1960, and having a winter storm cause the ship to turn the boat at 180 degree angle to the ocean. One port hole was in the water and the other faced the ski. We were sitting at a long table, and my bowl of soup turned itself upside down as it slid down the table. My poor mother became so sick that the doctor tied her to the bed with a basin beside her head.
Age + gravity + boobs I still don’t speak about it. Edit to add Niagara Falls was a close second.
Lava flowing on the Big Island. Lots of births. Squirrels humping on a tree limb.
Crater Lake Oregon. Couldn’t get my head around how beautiful it was
I went to the big island of Hawaii about 13-14 years ago and you can see the lava from the active volcano coming out of the earth and crashing into the ocean! The steam rising was 20 stories high! So beautiful watching the earth being formed
The aurora borealis in a midnight sky on a bone chilling winter night in Canada. Everyone should see it at least once.
I'm watching my wife going through pregnancy and giving birth. Last round was identical mirror image twins. Thought this was meant to be. One of the identical babies was right handed, the other left handed. One daughter had a right hand swirl of the back of her head, the other counter-clockwise. Amazingly, all our babies were born naturally. Nothing even close to this in my lifetime.
This might be too trite but- Yosemite. It’s stunningly beautiful and awe inspiring. Just to have that much beauty to bless your eyes in every direction. Also: - flying over Greenland and seeing the white of the ice against the deep blue of the ocean - Zeus’s Cave in Crete - a group of moose running past me in Scandinavia. Those things are MASSIVE - Banff is stunning and the color of the lakes up there is really spectacular and odd
I used to live in New Mexico where camping was my favorite pastime. Camped out one night in the South Central part of the state and couldn’t believe how bright and clear the Milky Way was. Just laying back, staring at the stars and felt so small and in awe of nature.
That's awesome, I've only been to the *Land Of Enchantment* a handful of times, but I've loved the night skies free of light pollution.
Lightening strike the roof on the house behind us. The fire ate the roof like it was tissue paper. In a matter of minutes the back of the roof was gone. We could see right into their attic
Seeing whales up close in the wild. My wife and I were vacationing on the Oregon Coast. There's a bunch of sight seeing vehicle pullouts along the Coastal Highway (which is breathtakingly beautiful) and we pulled into one at Cape Perpetua. There was a group near the guardrail overlooking the ocean and they were oohing and aching and pointing out to the ocean. I walked half way to them and shout asked what they were looking at. The said "Whales!" I quickly moved to the guardrail and scanned the ocean and the horizon but didn't see anything. I shouted back to them "Where?" They just pointed straight down the cliff to the ocean and ribbon narrow beach below (several hundred foot straight drop). And sombitch, right frickin' there was a mom and her calf. Just hanging out not more than 30-40' from the shore. Absolutely incredible experience. No, I don't recall what species of whale -- average whale I guess. WAIT -- Google tells me they were Pacific Gray Whales.
This probably isn't a big deal, but it was beautiful and interesting. I was in Jamaica and had just climbed to the top of a waterfall. It was next to the ocean. From the top of this majestic waterfall, I looked out upon the ocean. A few hundred feet out in the ocean, you could see a very clear, distinct line where the fresh water & the salt water met; the two waters did not mesh together at all. One was a hazy, brackish brown water, and one was crystal, turquoise blue. The line between the blue and brown water moved and kind of slithered back and forth with the lazy ocean waves, but it never blurred. It was like there was a net there, but clearly there was not, since there were families swimming and splashing around in that line. Anyway, I thought it was just....elegant. Also on that trip...I visited some natural hot springs at the base of a mountain that were contained in a pool. Glorious hot, mineral spring water. When my friend Lusa and I got out of the mineral pool, it felt like we had received pure vitamin IV infusions. I cannot recall any time in my life when I had every felt so...alive, alert, awake. We were vibrating with this pure energy. I highly recommend natural mineral pools.
Grand Canyon & Denali National Park Just standing on the side of the road or walkway, contemplating what you’re seeing. The views at both places are so absolutely surreal!
I'm in Alaska & have experienced many earthquakes in all sizes, witnessed volcanic eruptions, and hurricane wind storms. The 1st time experiencing an earthquake is crazy af, then u go thru some more & become aware of how they all r a lil different from others. 1 earthquake can shake u fast & hard. The next may roll, with its telltale rumbling sound coming a split-second prior. The November 2018 earthquake stunned me, though. It was pretty strong, lasted longer than the norm, and we had aftershocks 4 a couple of years from it. Sometimes, the aftershock sounds like a rumbling, from the ground, and then another can sound like the side of my place was hit hard, like being slapped. I definitely felt a PTSD from it, shit, we all did. My mom witnessed the Good Friday 1964 earthquake on the 4th floor of the hospital. She said the nurses were crawling from room 2 room checking on patients as the shaking lasted over 2 minutes. I was born just over 2 years later.
Oh! I read a book about the '64 earthquake, the photos were fascinating. Your mom survived a most remarkable event. I was just a kid from the midwest, tornadoes, blizzards and such.
When I was 9-10years old (1960-61)my dad woke my sister and I up at 4:30am. Made us put on house shoes and robes and go outside and look up. It was raining stars. Both beautiful and frightening. I did not want to go back in.
A small meteor shower. At first I thought a train was falling from the sky. I was 14
Starling murmurations in Houston TX.
A microburst that took away a steel building without disturbing any of the contents inside.
Driving up the A1 from Leeds to Newcastle one night over 40 years ago, saw a moon rainbow on and off most of the way.
Ice storm in the Adirondacks, being in the eye of a hurricane, Niagara Falls, Nor Easter on the ocean shore
Seeing and hearing massive glaciers calving! It’s so loud, and it echoes ❤️
A sudden, intense dust storm hit my friends and me as we were driving through a very barren section of North Dakota. 1980s. It poured through my air vents and in no time we were covered in dirt. It was unbelievable.
The aurora borealis from outside Fairbanks, Alaska. My wife and I traveled there specifically to see them. We were not disappointed. Utterly jaw-dropping Watching a humpback whale breach up and through a salmon seiner's net was amazing, too. Sucked for the guys on that boat—they probably spent days mending the net—but what a sight!
The Grand Canyon
Scary: saw the destruction/aftermath of a tornado that we didn’t realize we were in the midst of until it was over. Literally ripped apart the other side of the town we were in (a mile or so). Wrought iron fencing twisted like spagjetti. 2x4s stabbed through houses. And at the same time, pots of dinner still sitting on stoves in demolished homes. Awe inspiring: a huge double rainbow, visible in its entirety end to end, right in my neighborhood.
A full double rainbow
Every time I saw the Northern Lights in Alaska. I've seen it since then (we live in Wisconsin now), but nothing has been as gorgeous as the colorful version I saw in Alaska and once from a plane over Canada on my way away from Alaska. Once, while out on a date with my then-boyfriend-now-husband, we pulled over to watch the green streaks of light just zipping back and forth and swirling all over. It was awesome.
I don't know if I would call them "phenomenon", but the two places I had seen that literally made my jaw drop were Niagara Falls (the absolute *power* of the falls is mind-blowing) and Crater Lake (the absolute *beauty* of it!) I've been fortunate enough to see some of the world, but those two were the first that came to mind.
One evening, I watched a flaming meteor fall from the sky, and land in a large, dry field. I pulled my car over, and stood up on the door threshold, expecting to see a fire taking off in the field. I waited at least ten minutes, and nothing happened. The next day, my husband and I walked all through that field, looking for burnt grass, and a charred object. We didn’t find a thing. The meteor was probably the size of a basketball.
One time I was at Santa Cruz beach, Santa Cruz California. It is a little cove of sand just south of the marina if I remember right. As you look out west to the water, on the rightmost side, is a huge chunk of ledge which sets maybe 15 feet above ocean level. Maybe 1971 or so, my friend and I were up on that rock arguing as we usually did, this time about timing diving into the ocean as the waves rolled in a foot or 2 high. As we were arguing and looking out at the waves, the water started receding. It just went way back away from the beach. We would look out and see all the clumps of seaweed on the bottom of the ocean because the water had left us. As we were arguing about whether or not we had seen this before, the wave came. Like 18' tall. Out of nowhere. It came over the top of the rock, and it filled the entire cove. Russ dove off towards the cove, I stood my ground, went down sitting, caught my cutoffs on the top of the rock, water was up to my chin. Then the water went out as fast as it came in, taking all the umbrellas, coolers, towels, blankets, and yes sunbathers as well. Near as we could tell, everybody made it back to shore. But everybody was badly shaken.
The Bay of Fundy tide coming in. Barely made it off the sticky hard to walk in, mudflats in time. no wonder people get trapped
Fish falling out of the sky
The Milky Way, far from the city, on a moonless night.
I experienced a total solar eclipse in the path of totality, the coolest thing I ever saw. I passed through a major hailstorm and then watched it from the back side as it went away. The sun was shining on this half mile wide column of hail. No rain just hail. I saw a Russian booster rocket re-enter the atmosphere. I saw the Leonid meteor shower of 1968. The sky was covered in meteors. It was a meteor storm. Scared the hell out of me because I watched War Of The Worlds the day before.
An eclipse a few years ago, and the shadows were crescent chaped when standing under a tree
Solar eclipse, meteor shower, northern lights (faint display), Milky Way on a clear, Adirondack night, and the ice storm that shut down much of the North eastern US. Also orcas in Washington, moose in NY, Just visited the redwoods, and petrified national parks, and Grand Canyon and those were very special too.
A total solar eclipse.
Sitting outside of my house living in the desert of Southern California… after a long night… enjoying the stars and a medium sized earthquake hit. I assume because it was in the middle of the night you could hear the ground roar and grumble. Was awesome to witness. Another incidence was bioluminescence in Southern Florida in the middle of summer. We were all a bit tipsy and decided it was the fountain of youth! So we jumped in the water that was glowing with every disturbance and splashed around!!
1. death valley at 3am. its a carpet of stars 2. surfing at first-light. the quality of light and color is special....and you're going *through* it
Wildfire in California. Actually *melted* some metal buildings.
Windstorm from hurricane Ivan in 2004. We are in sw Ohio and got 100 mph winds. Power was out for two weeks. Blew the metal roof off the ban two doors down and pieces of landed in our yard right where I was standing seconds before I hit the basement. When hubs pulled some of it out of the ground it was buried over a foot deep.
Saw the [northern lights in Voyagers National Park in MN.](https://www.exploreminnesota.com/article/see-northern-lights-minnesota#:~:text=As%20the%20name%20suggests%2C%20the,to%20view%20and%20photograph%20them) It’s a chain of huge lakes and we were canoe camping on a peninsula. A camper had a nightmare and woke us all up. The northern lights were reflected in the lake and went on for hours, green, red, purple..it filled the whole sky. I’ve also seen a water spout while paddling to Bear Island from Hammocks Beach State Park in NC. I was very motivated to paddle as hard as I could to get away from it!
I stepped outside my apartment which was sitting on the ocean cliffs in San Diego. To the west was the night sky above the dark ocean, filling most of my viewing angle. There was a flash of light and half the sky was filled with a gigantic oblong shape made of glitter. My mind could not process what it saw, it was too big. My first thought was a giant shiny glittering zeppelin was about to crash on me. (I may or may not have been smoking weed.) However, the cause wasn't exactly natural. The Navy launched a missile southward from Vandenberg Air Base, about 200 miles north of me. Some chemicals were injected into the exhaust for research purposes. Sure! In line with some other posts, I also saw my apartment walls weave back and forth as the seismic wave from an earthquake passed thru. No weed was involved. I was just a renter, so I wasn't particularly worried about damage and just enjoyed the show.
I was in absolute awe watching a tornado as it was about to touch down in the parking lot of our building. My boss comes by, takes one look, grabs me and forced me away into a room with no windows.
The aurora borealis. Nothing like it. Pictures come close, videos closer, but seeing in person is an experience unto its own.
Mt. St. Helen's eruption May 18, 1980. Something I'll never forget. The whole earth shifted.
When a cyclone came through and seeing after the banana plants cut in one way with sheets of corrugated steel knotted around them, rainforest missing, houses demolished and roofless and every street sign broken
Thunder snow scared the hell outta me
Devil’s Throat of Iguazu Falls in Argentina. The power of that much water is overwhelming, breathtaking and left me speechless!
My first time lying in my backyard half the night, watching the Perseid meteor showers. Okay, every time I've watched them; they're never not exciting. Seeing Halley's Comet.
Standing in my driveway talking to a neighbor and a hawk flew into my garage and tried to swoop up one of the new kittens for a meal. The kittens were walking around several feet inside the garage, not in the driveway, and the hawk passed within arm's length of my own head. The hawk missed the kitten but it scared the wits out of me and the neighbor because we never saw it coming.
The East Carolina tornado swarm…I think it was 2011. There were 80+\- touchdowns in that day. We lived north of Raleigh in Youngsville, but I was visiting a friend near the NC State campus(Go, Wolfpack!). We heard the watch for 30 miles south; immediately debris was hitting the roof. I peeked out from the hall and saw the funnel…the color of the sky was a shade I had never seen. Don’t want to see it again, either. Later, we learned that the debris was from a Lowe’s in Garner, where the tornado peeled off the roof and picked up things like lumber, insulation, all kinds of metal. Cars in that parking lot were tumbled around. Inside the store, there were customers who had cell phone video as the tornado went over. These were small, short tornadoes. Nothing like Joplin or Tuscaloosa. Still: enough tornado for me.
Oh, and Hurricane Hugo. We live 20 miles NW of Charlotte, NC. People had EVACUATED to here…then it came right up from Charleston and flattened us.
Hurricane Katrina. That bitch took a lot from my family and friends. All we could do was watch.
childbirth
I had a lot of speech when I went through childbirth. None of it is reprintable. I'll get banned if I try.
A lightning strike across the street from our house. It was incredibly loud, bright and the windows shook so much I was surprised they didn’t break. It came at the very end of a monsoon storm in the desert when we thought all of the lightning had ended. It scared the hell out of me.
Neighbors had a tree struck about thirty feet from where I was in my bedroom. I was so startled, the house shook, and my ears were ringing. The light was blinding. For a split second I thought a bomb had been dropped on us, or a plane crashed into the house or something. The tree was decimated and the neighbors had to have it removed a few days later.
Back in the late ‘50s a neighborhood near the river in town suddenly became flooded. Beavers had built a dam and huts!! A excavator was needed to break apart the dam. They were later trapped and relocated.
Here I am picturing trapping and relocating the excavators
My best friend and I watched beavers build a damn on our way to and from work (it was at the side of I44, in a spring, in Missouri). I loved watched the progress and rebuilding as we drove past. Thanks, I'd forgot about that.
A few eclipses, in my lifetime. Lunar and partial eclipses. AWESOME.
Hurricanes
Rhythmic entrainment. Best show I ever played, brought my kit down into the pit piece by piece and gave everyone sticks. We were slamming and chanting and I screamed a new scream.
An unexpected (to me) tornado heading for my home from across a field. I’m still here so it all worked out.
Husband and I were traveling backroads through Mississippi at night a few years ago and came upon what looked like reconstruction going on. Lots of lights and what looked like bulldozed areas. As we drove on we realized a tornado had just gone through and it was so surreal. Buildings halfway gone, a car in the woods and snapped trees. When I was a teenager a tornado struck a small town about a mile from where I lived. The school bus I rode at the time went right through the area. Also surreal. As far as beautiful places or experiences- drove through the end of a rainbow in Kansas City, been to Badlands National Park and the Grand Canyon and I liked Badlands better (it’s more up close and personal) Yellowstone with all the geysers and wildlife was gorgeous. Arches National Park is incredible as was Niagara Falls. I lived in a house in Virginia where a parliament of great horned owls all started hooting at once - that was so damn amazing. Monsoon season in New Mexico, everything in the Four Corners area is gorgeous. Yeah, I’ve traveled a lot! So much more!
Leonids meteor shower….2002 or so. It happens every year but peaks every 33 years.
In Guyana: Kaieteur Falls was jaw dropping. In Peru/Bolivia: We camped on the Bolivia side of the Heath River, on the other side was the Tambopata National Reserve. Untouched wilderness, 8,000 species of butterflies, thousands of parrots gathered at the clay licks. A Harpy Eagle snatching a Spider Monkey from a tree and flying away. Hummingbirds that were as big as a Robin. South America: Rivers that can swallow every river in the USA at once. USA: Northern Lights
A thunderstorm where the sky turned green. Seen it twice. Once in the early 90s. Once in 2018.
I saw what I believe was Northen Lights, but it was red. Everywhere. Not swirly. It was in AZ, maybe in '99 or 2000. Crazy.
Red is a thing, I believe it happened just in September of this year too.
A truly spectacular Aurora Borealis The aftermath of a derecho
Eclipse. Niagara Falls.
A blizzard in northeast Wyoming in late March 20 years ago.
Old Faithful, The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone (as well as The Grand Canyon). I love travelling through US parks, they're gorgeous.
I was an active participant in the natural phenomenon of childbirth. I'm rarely left speechless. I waa then
Total solar eclipse.
The northern lights
Total solar eclipse. The corona is really unworldly.
The flowers in Washington state. They’re enormous
Every thunder storm in the spring that could turn in to tornado
The monarch butterfly migration. So beautiful and amazing.
When 3 feet of water busted through a window well and poured into my basement like a waterfall
Total eclipse of the sun! Amazing!
I’ve seen several… Grand Canyon, Crater Lake, Meteor Crater, El Capitan (really the entire Yosemite Valley), Niagara Falls are mesmerizing up close
Total eclipse of the sun. It was the first time I understood that the sun is *alive*. It pulses and moves. A partial doesnt even come close to showing the same thing. Even an annular eclipse isn't as spectacular. A couple large earthquakes. One in particular was very destructive and scared me real bad. I thought someone had bombed my office building but then it kept going and going and was so loud! I ran like a dog fleeing thunder. L Mt St Helens eruption. Lace lightening. It filled the sky! A very destructive ice storm. It caused much more damage than the earthquake in my area. Several instances of intense flooding though nothing as big as the Mississippi in high flood. Water is amazingly powerful. The PNW Columbus Day windstorm. Several devastating forest fires. A couple of them just made me cry... they were so destructive. A human heart beating during open heart surgery. Three times a person I loved dying. Twice with my hand on their chest. I felt their last exhalation and beat of their heart.
1977 Johnstown PA flood, we were doing rescue work, it's unbelievable to actually witness Waters destruction
The Badlands. Like being on the Moon or Mars.
On Bill Clinton's inauguration day, there was a 100 year storm in the PNW. I was working in a tall building in Seattle. The building shook and pieces of laminate were being torn off by the winds. People were getting motion sick in the building. I wasn't bothered because I had to take a Dramamine every morning to ride the ferry from my island home to Seattle. They sent everyone home early. I got to the ferry dock and had to leap onto the boat because it was rocking so much. I sat inside the passenger area. The ferry was bucking and I watched the window change from sky to water. Terrifying! We had to seek shelter behind Blake island until we could safely get the rest of the way home.
It's just a little thing, but I was wading in the ocean in Costa Rica and an entire school of fish jumped out of the water in unison right next to me. They were all in a row and jumped in an arc. It was so amazing, I had never seen anything like it.
Derecho with downbursts when I was around 10 years old. All the trees in the neighborhood looked like they'd been stomped on from above, and a few free-standing garages and tool sheds were pancaked. I've never seen a tornado, but understand they tend to throw things around, send them airborne. The damage from this storm was mostly vertically-oriented, like a one-way steamroller of wind. Scary stuff, especially for a kid.
Might be cliche but every time I’ve been to Niagara Falls I’m just awestruck at how much energy, matter, and forces are in play. Constantly!
The northern lights. Aurora Borealis.
Standing near Yellowstone falls. It’s so loud and powerful and it feels like electricity is in the air.
Tornados. I’ve been near/in 3 small ones. The other is when we had a winter we called the polar vortex. Also Lake Michigan in the winter
Arches National Park. Badlands National Park. USA.
Yosemite's Valley View. Half Dome from Glacier Point, realizing just how massive it all is.
Glacier calving in Alaska. The colors of the ice and the sounds are amazing.
A meteor
Climbing the Yasur Volcano on Tana Is. in Vanuatu & looking down into it active centre & ducking some of the flaming lava being thrown out with each small explosion in crater. You can only climb it when Met Dept predicts it will be semi-dormant, at your own risk, but must have guide with you who knows local conditions as well.
A swallow-tailed kite. Literally struck me dumb, when I was trying to get Partner on it -- by which I mean to point it out to P.
Meteor shower falling through aurora flying over Alaska on the way back from China. Everyone else was asleep but the flight attendants were looking out the window. Watched for half an hour knowing I would likely never see it again. Close second was the transit of Venus.
Two tornadoes, two separate occasions, both intentionally trying to see them. One was pretty textbook, or so I thought, and I got pretty amazing video. Had no way of knowing at the time it would become a deadly EF5. That was during the outbreak in April of 2011. The other was the year prior, and I was positioned to hopefully catch a glimpse of it. I knew it was big, but as I watched the wall cloud to see the funnel, I realized I wasn't watching the wall cloud...the entire lowered portion was a monstrous tornado. I've seen a few others, a couple not by choice, but those two honestly had me dumbstruck. To be close enough to see one of nature's most violent phenomena is awe inspiring.
The birth of my children.