Vikter Posted June 30, 2012 Report Share Posted June 30, 2012 I got to experiance a few interesting things yesterday, seeing someone steam as if giving off Stormlight and watching the wall of a "High Storm" hit. As somepeople on the boards know the middle of America is getting hit with an intense heatwave at the moment, temperature in the 100's across the board. On top of this I happen to work at a restaurant as a cook, now our kitchen is extremely hot (roughly 130F at the peak of dinner service last night), after our dinner rush was over myself and the other Line Cook stepped into the walkin refrigerator to try and cool down. When I looked over at my friend I saw, to my great shock, his whole body was steaming. Being the nerd that I am the first thing that came to mind was Kaladin, I have to say it is awesome to be able to actually see something like that in person. My witnessing of the storm wall hitting was also due to this excisive heat we have been experiencing. Because it has been so hot the last few day a massive storm front just came out of nowhere when I left work last night. While it was obviously nowhere near the power of a High Storm there were gusts of up to 80MPH. I got to see everything Brandon described about one of his storms in miniature. Instead of boulders being thrown when the first wave of wInd hit debris went flying everywhere, cups, bottles, cans, chairs, outdoor umbrellas. As the storm intensified trees started to come down, fortunately no one Got hurt that I saw. The rain even came in so hard and fast that it could not disperse fast enough and some areas were overflowing much like the chasms would be during a storm. I thought is was kind of cool to see some of these real life equivalents to what is in WotK. It makes reading them in the books seem even more "real" in my own mind for having an actual experiance to equate them to. Has anyone else experianced something like this? Where a real life event or events allows you to visualize scenes you have read better and increased your enjoyment of a book? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kari-no-sugata Posted June 30, 2012 Report Share Posted June 30, 2012 I dont remember being in a real tropical storm but I do remember a crazy sudden downpour we had a few years ago - was around noon in middle of summer and it just suddenly started raining REALLY crazy hard. Like, you could see about 20m and all the cars etc had to slow down to like 5mph else they'd crash and there was instant flash floods. Never seen anything like it before or since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted June 30, 2012 Report Share Posted June 30, 2012 I grew up near the Gulf of Mexico so I understand the immense power of thunder/tropical storms and the flooding/noise/damage they can cause. However, I grew up near the Gulf of Mexico, so I also understand the routine, blase "what an inconvenience let's just sit tight while it all this majesty of nature blows over" sentiment that takes over when these things happen regularly. A few times every summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vikter Posted June 30, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2012 I have been through a number of hurricanes and tropical storms, but I think this is the first time I was ever outside right when a storm like this rolled through and had to find my way home in it. The damage was quite impressive for such a short storm, I could see it being hard to have large trees or plants if a storm like this one rolled through once a week, nevermind one like the Hypercanes that happen on Roshar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted June 30, 2012 Report Share Posted June 30, 2012 I don't think there is any doubt that the Highstorms are super hurricanes. Anyone that has ridden out a hurricane can attest that the description fits almost perfectly. Even the reactions of the people are mostly right on target for a major storm. Growing up, everyone always talked about Betsy and Camille and how big/bad they were. These mentions have pretty much disappeared since Katrina swept through out small city. I don't know what he originally envisioned them as, but it isn't hard to think that the description may have been affected by events that went down a few years before the book came out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted July 11, 2012 Report Share Posted July 11, 2012 Actually, having been through this storm, it seems to suit Highstorms much better. There was a line of thunderstorms that plowed through the area at sixty miles an hour with hurricane-force gusts, followed by weaker scattered storms. It's apparently called a derecho, and the wikipedia page image looks a good deal like the description of the stormwall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj26792 Posted July 13, 2012 Report Share Posted July 13, 2012 I don't have a fancy name for it but when I lived in in Broken Hill out in central Australia we used to get storms like that, but not wide and they are exactly what I imagine the high storm to be except affecting a larger area. One year we had two close together, and the first one, hit 3 blocks wide, literally outside that there was barely even rain, inside that houses had roofs ripped off and thrown around like toys, the second was even stronger but only hit one block wide, and it hit a poorer section of the town and just about levelled a strip one block wide, we barely noticed it ten minutes drive away. They just roll in off the hot desert probably similar to the one mentioned at the start by Vikter, not circular, which is why I think that the highstorm is more like a desert storm than a cyclone/hurricane, it comes like a wave over the whole continent, rather than spirals through, for it to be a hurricane it would have to be huge for them not to notice something like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inkthinker Posted July 14, 2012 Report Share Posted July 14, 2012 I grew up near the Gulf of Mexico so I understand the immense power of thunder/tropical storms and the flooding/noise/damage they can cause. However, I grew up near the Gulf of Mexico, so I also understand the routine, blase "what an inconvenience let's just sit tight while it all this majesty of nature blows over" sentiment that takes over when these things happen regularly. A few times every summer. Hahaaaaa... I grew up in Tampa Bay, it's like "oh... hurricanes. *sigh*... Bring in the cat." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king of nowhere Posted July 16, 2012 Report Share Posted July 16, 2012 Actually, having been through this storm, it seems to suit Highstorms much better. There was a line of thunderstorms that plowed through the area at sixty miles an hour with hurricane-force gusts, followed by weaker scattered storms. It's apparently called a derecho, and the wikipedia page image looks a good deal like the description of the stormwall. Thanks for the image, it was impressive. I think highstorms would be even stronger, since a man tied and exposed to a hurricane would not be in a great risk to his life. Also, the more I learn about other climates, the more I realize how lucky I was to be born in northern italy. no hurricanes, no storms, a winter mild enough that it don't inconvenience much but cold enough to keep the bug populations under control, a summer hot but still manageable. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vikter Posted July 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2012 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercane I hope that link works, the mobile version of the forums make posting things such a pain. This type of storm might be a even more powerful than a Highstorm is, fortunately they are cannot happen on Earth under anything resembling normal conditions. I first heard of a Hypercane in an article about possible side effects of a meteor strike. In order for sea water to reach the temperatures need to produce a storm of this magnitude ( which our shields could not repel [sorry I had to go for the Star Wars referance]) an asteroid would have to impact into to ocean. Such an event would kill most of us anyway so a 500mph wind hurricane would be the least of our worries. However on Roshar they seem to get hit by a storm about half that strong, but infinatly more vast, about once a week. As I said in my original post, I don't think that trees or any major plant life we have now would be able to stand a storm even half again of a Highstorm if they were as frequent. But of course the Highstorms also give life to the planet, nothing on Roshar could survive if not for the highly concentrated nutriants that they contain. I believe it is stated somewhere in the book that it is common knowledge that Highstorm rain is significantly better for growing than regular rain. That gives me a new theory, what if the Highstorms were not in fact created by Honor or Cultivation (Honor even refers to the final Desolation as The Everstorm, what would cause more desolation than a perpetual Highstorm)? What if they were created by Odium in an attempt to scour the planet clean of life? Maybe it is a reverse of the mists on Scadrial, they were subverted to be life giving and all plant and animal life seems to have be adapted (cultivated) to not only survive in a storm but to thrive off of the aftermath of one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj26792 Posted July 17, 2012 Report Share Posted July 17, 2012 Thats an interesting thought but the high storms are just so cultivating I cant see them as being of any other shard. Part of cultivating is killing the weak and putting the strong through adversity in order to strengthen them. The high storms do that beautifully and then provide crem to help those strong enough to survive to grow stronger and survive easier next time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riddlesinthedark Posted July 31, 2012 Report Share Posted July 31, 2012 (edited) Easily the most impressive storm I've ever seen was several years ago when two storm cells merged and just smashed into Provo. Broken trees and quite a bit of rain, but I'm not sure it has really anything on a Highstorm. Since a highstorm can pick up a tall, fit, very muscular man (Kaladin has been carrying around a bridge for a while at this point. He'd be 220 at the very, very minimum), can we calculate the necessary wind speeds to push him around like a kite? But this thread needs more storm porn. I'll get it started. Edited July 31, 2012 by Voldy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riddlesinthedark Posted July 31, 2012 Report Share Posted July 31, 2012 Though this one seems more ethereal and delicate. More like the Mists from TFE, etc, than the Highstorms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inkthinker Posted July 31, 2012 Report Share Posted July 31, 2012 (edited) Easily the most impressive storm I've ever seen was several years ago when two storm cells merged and just smashed into Provo. Broken trees and quite a bit of rain, but I'm not sure it has really anything on a Highstorm. Since a highstorm can pick up a tall, fit, very muscular man (Kaladin has been carrying around a bridge for a while at this point. He'd be 220 at the very, very minimum), can we calculate the necessary wind speeds to push him around like a kite? Hurricanes throw multi-ton cars and boats like toys. At Cat 2 or 3, roofs are torn away and walls are knocked down. At Cat 5, towns are flattened. Cat 1 and 2 winds will easily knock you down and roll you over, winds at Cat 3 and above are more than sufficient to throw a human of pretty much any weight, and it's been known to happen. Locals are blase about it because we've grown used to the threat (and thankfully for where I lived, a hurricane had to follow a very narrow and specific path to constitute a catastrophic threat), but they're still dangerous and damaging storms. A Roshari highstorm is a Cat 5 or better, which is more than sufficient to scour the land. Check out what Hurricane Andrew did 20 years ago to Homestead, Florida... it was a Cat 5 and it cleared entire subdivisions down to matchsticks. Edited July 31, 2012 by Inkthinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj26792 Posted August 1, 2012 Report Share Posted August 1, 2012 Or cyclone Tracy in Darwin, it levelled a state capital in Australia. However I still maintain that highstorms are a conventional front rather than cyclonic/hurriconic (is that even a word.... It might be now) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esobnov Posted August 1, 2012 Report Share Posted August 1, 2012 @voldy we have to remember that roshar's gravity is only .7 of the force of gravity on earth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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