Extreme Weather Events

[Targan]

I thought about putting OT: in front of this thread's title but then I realised it correlates well with the game. In my city today we had a freak storm that brought monsoon-like conditions for some of the day (hot and sticky, high humidity, thunder and lightning, rain) then came a cold snap and either very heavy rain or in some areas hail. And not just any hail, hail stones literally the size of golf balls which pretty much destroyed my fiance's car's windscreen and dented the hell out of the roof and bonnet.

I know we've talked about the game mechanics of extreme high and low temperatures, exposure to harsh environments and the like but there are a few effects we haven't yet touched on. For instance, at what wind speeds do heavier and heavier objects start to get picked up by the wind and flung about? What damage to a person would different wind-flung objects do? How much hurt could a fist-sized hail stone deliver? What damage would a character suffer if struck by lightning? Would a 100-knot sand storm kill you by choking/burying you or would having your skin abraided away kill you first?

Discuss if you will.

[General Pain]

Yes and when does it impare small arms?

[Adm.Lee]

I was thinking about something like this a week or two ago, when I remembered that tornado season is approaching.

There are some weather rules in the D&D 3.5 DMG, which might be swipe-able. I'll have to look them up.

[sglancy12]

I guess the thing about Extreme Weather Events that gets my attention isn't so much the micro effect that such events would have on a group of player characters, but rather the effect that weather would have on the entire area.

This is especially interesting post 1997 nuclear exchange. From November '97 onward there is going to be no such thing as international aid for natural disasters. Any country hit by an earthquake or hurricane or any other extreme weather event is going to be on their own. There are a number of historical weather and seismic events that took place during the TW2K timeline and it's my intention to incorporate them into the TW2K world.

A big for-instance is the 1998 Caribbean Hurricane Season. In real life, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua got plastered by the hurricanes. In some cases over 90% of the crops were destroyed. Who needs a nuclear bomb hitting your country if 90% of next years food suddenly disappears! The country would disintegrate into riots and looting. Even worse, say you are a country that fared well and either got missed by the hurricanes or quickly rebuilt your food stocks. What do you think is going to happen when the not-so-lucky guys next door run out of food? You think they will sit at home and quietly watch their children starve?

No. They are coming after your food.

But it's worth thinking about... Just because the US and Canada has been smacked with a few dozen mega tons of nuclear death doesn't mean that tornadoes and flash floods aren't going to still happen. And there's going to be little in the way of Federal aid to compensate the victims. Hell, after November '97 there's not going to be anything like private insurance either. It's going to be community and neighbor assistance or nothing, with individual counties and towns taking care of their own populations. Rarely will state governments be able to assist and the Feds have got bigger problems... like trying to keep the (rather pointless) war effort going.

Here are a few of the world-wide natural disasters I've been able to find when I was researching this stuff. I've "Twilightized" them to show how the real life event would mix with the fictional war effects.

01/98 TW USA/Canada A massive ice storm, caused by El Niño, strikes New England, southern Ontario and Quebec, resulting in widespread power failures, severe damage to forests, and a huge number of deaths, especially Canada. The ice storm causes terrible damage to New England, where no nukes were dropped. In Canada, the situation was even worse.

02/04/98 Afghanistan: An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter Scale in northeast Afghanistan kills more than 5,000.

02/19/98 New Zealand: 66-day blackout begins in Auckland, New Zealand.

02/23/98 USA: Tornadoes in central Florida destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42 (see Florida El Niño Outbreak).

03/14/98 Iran: An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hits southeastern Iran, disrupting US Operations in the region.

04/16/98 USA: A massive tornado occurred in Nashville, Tennessee. It is the first tornado in 20 years to make a direct hit on a major city. (see Nashville Tornado of 1998)

04/25/98 Spain: A waste reservoir at Los Frailes mine in Andalusia, Spain, ruptures, discharging heavy metal waste into the Guadiamar River. The pollution threatens the sensitive ecosystem and endangered species of Doñana National Park, Spain's largest nature reserve, but is diverted into the Guadalquivir River. Up to 100 km of farmland are ruined by the spill.

05/30/98 Afghanistan: A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits northern Afghanistan killing up to 5,000.

07/17/98 New Guinea: A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 1,500, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless. 7.1 magnitude earthquake 24 km offshore was followed within 11 minutes by a tsunami about 12 m tall. The villages of Arop and Warapu were destroyed.

08/29 to 11/03/98 Caribbean: Hurrican Mitch slows down and dumps record amounts of rain on Central America. Massive damage to housing in Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador, somewhere between 11,000-18,000 (Worse with no weather service warnings) people care killed across the Caribbean. Follow on casualties are worse with no foreign relief aid.

1999 USA & Carribean: Hurricane Floyde

01/01/99 Canada: An avalanche destroys a school gymnasium during New Years' celebrations in Kangiqsualujjuaq in far northern Quebec, killing 9.

01/02/99 USA A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern USA, causing 14 inches (359 mm) of snow at Milwaukee, Wisconsin and 19 inches (487 mm) at Chicago, Illinois. In Chicago, temperatures plunge to -13°F (-25°C), and 68 (x100) deaths are reported. Twilight War conditions will make this so much worse.

01/25/99 Columbia: A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia killing at least 1,000

02/10/99 Switzerland: Avalanches in the French Alps near Geneva kill at least 10.

02/23/99 Austria: An avalanche destroys the Austrian village of Galtür, killing 31.

03/24/99 Franco-Italian Border: Fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel kills 39 people, closing the tunnel for nearly 3 years.

05/03/99 USA A F5 tornado slams in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma killing 38 (x100) people. This was the strongest tornado ever. (See Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak). Conditions of the Twilight war make the situation far worse.

08/17/99 Turkey: A 7.4-magnitude earthquake strikes northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000 (Twilight War conditions make this disaster far worse)

05/28/00 West Africa: The volcano Mount Cameroon erupts.

07/10/00 Nigeria: In southern Nigeria, a leaking petroleum pipeline explodes killing about 250 villagers who were scavenging gasoline.

10/11/00 USA: 250 million gallons of coal sludge spill in Martin County, Kentucky. Considered a greater environmentaldisaster than the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

11/03/00 UK: Widespread flooding throughout England and Wales after days of heavy rain.

01/13/01 El Salvador: Major earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale hits all El Salvador.

01/26/01 India: An earthquake hits Gujarat, India. More than 20,000 deaths and most of the historical city is destroyed.

02/13/01 El Salvador: An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter Scale hits El Salvador, killing at least 400

02/28/01 USA: An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale hits the Nisqually Valley area of Washington, near the Puget Sound. There was one reported death, an elderly woman who suffered a heart attack.

06/05-09/01 USA: Houston, Texas is devastated by flooding when Tropical Storm Allison dumps 36 inches (900 mm) of rain on the city. Particularly hard hit are the downtown area and the Texas Medical Center, which lost years of research and data and thousands of lab animals. Twenty-two people die; damage exceeds five billion American dollars.

11/04/01 Cuba: Hurricane Michelle hits Cuba destroying crops and thousands of homes.




A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

[Legbreaker]

It's a very interesting list. I wonder how the post nuke climate changes would affect them?
Probably make them worse and more frequent in my opinion (excepting earthquakes of course).

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

It's a very interesting list. I wonder how the post nuke climate changes would affect them?
Probably make them worse and more frequent in my opinion (excepting earthquakes of course).

The earthquakes and tsunamis would occur on schedule. After 1998 the weather events wouldn't. By that I don't mean there wouldn't be extreme weather events, there definitely would, its just that those exact same weather events in those exact locations wouldn't necessarily occur. The Los Frailes mine disaster and the Martin County coal sludge spill would probably still happen but the dates might be different (assuming they were caused by weather events or human failings).

In my campaign I used the Harnmaster weather generation system and the watch by watch log system so I have a detailed record of local weather conditions for the party every four hours from the Battle of Kalisz to the end of February 2001.

[Adm.Lee]

Caribbean hurricanes sound like another reason for the Soviets there to get out to Mexico.

I used to have a terrific weather-generator program called Weathermaster-- it could do stuff down to the minute. Sadly, it's no longer functional, and the company is belly-up.