Huge Storms in WDW

Main Street USA

Main Street USA

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I was just watching The Weather Channel and they were showing a close up of FL and the Orlando area. There's a pretty rough line of "red" storms heading right over the area, and in fact, they even mentioned WDW. Anyone down there today experience these? Just curious....

Also, I'd be interested to hear any other stories of wierd or extreme weather conditions during visits to WDW. Anyone have any?

Mine are just the usual sudden, torrential downpours. One minute it's sunny, and then within 5 minutes, we've got clouds, and then BAM, it's like a waterfall! I know this is typical afternoon summer weather down there, but it's pretty neat to someone who doesn't live there.
 
meanmice

meanmice

Member
Last summer was my first experiance with the phenominom known as florida weather. we've had sudden showers before, but not one every day. it was neat. it was also cool to watch the thunderstorms. we were looking at se from ws and it looked like lightning was striking the wand. very cool
 
C

civileng68

Account Suspended
lightning

My wife and I were at the park on a Friday night in August and just before FITS there was a MASSIVE thunderstorm. They cancelled the fireworks. In fact, the storm was so bad they stopped the park music momentarily to ask people to take cover. It was very eery in the park since we were back at POTC. NOBODY was left there. My wife couldn't run very well and so we had to wait it out, BY OURSELVES. So, we went in to ride POTC and it was deserted. It was pretty eery out. Finally when we came out we had to make a dash for it and just walked fast to the bathrooms over by Crystal Palace. While there a huge lightning bolt struck the top of the castle. It was deafening and literally shook me up a little. Shortly after that bolt, they closed the attractions in the park to get people to filter out. It was amazing. I would say the park was being struck with a rate of 1 bolt every 10 seconds for about a half hour. I was literally scared and I live in South Florida where we get them every day in the summer.

Put it this way, when I normally am out during a storm, I dont fear getting struck because I know the odds, well, that night there was so much lightning I felt like my chances were actually against me.
 
surfsupdon

surfsupdon

Well-Known Member
Out of all my vacations to WDW, there was only one time that there were rains. And it was a doozy.

To anyone who was at WDW for New Years Eve 2002--2003 you know exactly what I am talking about. Epcot was a complete flooded mess. It was actually torturous for me--I remmeber thinking I'd rather be home, thats how cold, windy, WET, and flooded it was!
 
Main Street USA

Main Street USA

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Re: lightning

Originally posted by civileng68
My wife and I were at the park on a Friday night in August and just before FITS there was a MASSIVE thunderstorm. They cancelled the fireworks. In fact, the storm was so bad they stopped the park music momentarily to ask people to take cover. It was very eery in the park since we were back at POTC. NOBODY was left there. My wife couldn't run very well and so we had to wait it out, BY OURSELVES. So, we went in to ride POTC and it was deserted. It was pretty eery out. Finally when we came out we had to make a dash for it and just walked fast to the bathrooms over by Crystal Palace. While there a huge lightning bolt struck the top of the castle. It was deafening and literally shook me up a little. Shortly after that bolt, they closed the attractions in the park to get people to filter out. It was amazing. I would say the park was being struck with a rate of 1 bolt every 10 seconds for about a half hour. I was literally scared and I live in South Florida where we get them every day in the summer.

Put it this way, when I normally am out during a storm, I dont fear getting struck because I know the odds, well, that night there was so much lightning I felt like my chances were actually against me.
Click to expand...

This may sound moronic, but that's exactly the type of day that I would love to be there. I loved to be scared by weather. It gives you that little rush, and reminds you that you have very little control over such a massive phenomenon. (I have no idea if I spelled that right.)
 
marksniles

marksniles

Member
When I was there last summer we had a massive storm. We were at EPCOT and wanted to take a monorail over to the TTC to catch a monorail over to the magic kingdom. The monorail wasn't working. They turned the electricity off to the whole line. There was actually a monorail stuck on the line. When they turn the electircity off to the line - nothing works. THE AC was off in that monorail. Hate to be those people. They tried and tried to turn the power back on but they couldn't do it. Later we found out that we were in the middle of a tornado watch. I had never seen FL rain like that before. The power was finally restored and we got back to the TTC. The MAgic Kingdom line was down. They told us that they were providing buses to take us to the Magic Kingdom. We waited and waited and waited and then we found out that the only way to get there was to take the ferry. They never provided buses for us. There were A LOT of unhappy people and the bus stops.

We took the ferry in the middle of the storm and thousands and thousands of people were coming out of the park and taking the ferry back to the TTC. Very few people were entering the park. Luckily the storm emptied the park and we were able to enjoy Spectromagic by sitting on a bench and letting the floats go by. In the end, everything worked out. Although my wife and sister weren't too happy with me at the time that I was dragging them through a tornado watch to go see a parade. We Disney fans are comitted to our parades!

Later,
Mark
 
xfkirsten

xfkirsten

New Member
Originally posted by surfsupdon
Out of all my vacations to WDW, there was only one time that there were rains. And it was a doozy.

To anyone who was at WDW for New Years Eve 2002--2003 you know exactly what I am talking about. Epcot was a complete flooded mess. It was actually torturous for me--I remmeber thinking I'd rather be home, thats how cold, windy, WET, and flooded it was!
Click to expand...

Yes! I was working Glow at Magic Kingdom that night... just get out to the Hub with my cart and it just opens up. After about 20 min of standing in the rain and lightning (the cover was already filled up by guests), we all took our carts and ran back to Pirates to get ponchos... didn't really do much good, though. Most people decided to leave rather that buy a poncho and stick around. MK was deserted the rest of the night! I stuck around and did busy work just so I could stay for the fireworks at midnight. I ran over to the docks in Frontierland, along the river to watch the fireworks, and it was still pouring rain. I saw maybe two people during that entire fireworks show.

-Kirsten
 
M. Racer

M. Racer

New Member
Oh Yeah? Had some verrry cold(for Florida) weather in Jan.2003.
It was about 20 degrees at Epcot when Illuminations started. As the temp dropped thruoghout the day people purchased more and more clothes. I think it tied some record for icy cold in Orlando. :lookaroun
 
epcot2004

epcot2004

Active Member
Several years ago we were in MK and CM's were telling everyone to get inside. Word was that there was a tornado warning. I'll take the weather down there any day compared to what goes on up here!:hammer:
 
B

Becky

Active Member
Originally posted by surfsupdon
Out of all my vacations to WDW, there was only one time that there were rains. And it was a doozy.

To anyone who was at WDW for New Years Eve 2002--2003 you know exactly what I am talking about. , WET, and flooded it was!
Click to expand...


Yep, it started right as the first Illuminations started.:( Ponchos did no good as it rained up, down and around:eek:

I left right after Illuminations and the water on the walkways was over my ankles and it had only rained 30 minutes:(

People were almost fighting to get on busses but Disney brought in loads of extra busses, theirs and others so that wait was not so bad.:cool:

One local said it was "The dry season":D Two to three inches per hour is not dry to me:lol:

The good part was no lightning:D
 
ClemsonTigger

ClemsonTigger

Naturally Grumpy
Just Another E Ticket

Yes, had plenty of experiences with the tremendous downpours. Got good at predicting them 2-3 PM that we came back to the hotel and went to the gym/spa during that time, got cleaned up and went out for the evening.

Also many times where you just put on the poncho and go. Always pack one instead of buying each time :D

Even weathered two minor hurricanes as we often go in October. Again, ponchos on and do it anyway.

The worst was an arrival a number of years ago. We hit turbulence around Georgia that just kept increasing. At about the Florida state line, we just dropped over 500ft. Ice cubes and drinks just left the glassess and hung there...until... Needless to say with many first time fliers and MANY children what followed after was not a pretty site, I'll spare you the details. When we landed, people were laughing, cheering and crying at the same time. We found out later that we were the last direct flight let into Orlando from the north and a tornado came through 15 minutes later.

One footnote, on our return, we recognized some of the same families that were on our original flight. It was clear blue and as smooth a flight as you could want. We heard a couple of the children asking when the airplane was going to be "fun", like before.
 
T

TURKEY

New Member
Wasn't in the parks today, but clouds were extremely dark and windy. Rain was extremely heavy at times.

Looks like it's going to be a long day/night with a steady rain with some chances of heavy rain/storms. Tomorrow, there's also a pretty good chance of rain.

I didn't hear of any tornado sightings anywhere around today.

On the radio, when they break in with the weather warnings, SeaWorld and Universal got mentioned, but they didn't say anything about WDW on the ones I heard.
 
Ergens2

Ergens2

New Member
I've got one for you! I think this tops everyone. We flew into Orlando on Sept. 11 2001! Not only were we one of 5 planes to land and they closed the park that day, but the next day we caught the fringes of a hurricane!!!!! 45+ winds, 4 inches of standing water in Epcot for 5 days!! What a mess!!! They closed AK while we were there because of all the mud! That was our best trip ever... NOT! :lol:
 
Defend10

Defend10

Member
WDW got nailed today, there was a tornado watch, but I haven't heard of any actual damage in the Orlando area, some of Central FL was shown on the weather channel earlier, though, outlying areas, that had signifigant damage.

535, the area where it almost borders WDW, had inches of water covering its surface for a while, almost didn't make it to class today.
 

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