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Craziest Park Weather Experiences


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In 2005 when I was working at Cedar Point, we had an insane thunderstorm where Wicked Twister and the sky ride got struck by lightning, a kid was struck by lightning in the parking lot, the power went out and there was flash flooding. Luckily I happened to be in Johnny Rockets at the time so I got to stay nice and dry, but it was crazy to watch. And what's even crazier is the day started of completely clear, sunny and 90+ degrees.

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A few theme park weather days I can remember:

 

Six Flags Great America on the 2010 Middle America tour. - We were about to start ERT on Little Dipper and the heavens opened. A massive thunderstorm set off so we all just stood undercover for a while. Little Dipper ERT was cancelled but thankfully ERT on Viper and Raging Bull did go ahead once the weather passed over a short while later.

 

Six Flags St Louis on the 2010 Middle America tour. - Just a scorching hot day. Riding all the coasters was hard work.

 

Janfusun Fancyworld on the 2013 Taiwan trip. - Mega hot and 100% humidity pretty much killed me. I was exhausted by the end of the day. It didn't help that at late morning I rushed towards the giant indoor kiddie area to escape the heat and found it hot and stuffy which was very disheartening. Nowhere the escape it from and recover for ten minutes. On the way out of the park I did find the Coffee museum which did have the most amazing AC but we had to leave so could only soka it up for 5 minutes at the most.

 

Universal Studios Japan on the 2013 Japan trip. - Just rained all day. Amazing park but would love to go back to experience a dry day there. It has to rain sometimes I guess. Raining at USJ is the best place it could possibly rain as that park has a ton of indoor attractions compared to Fuji Q where if it had rained there, no one would ahve ridden a thing!

 

Frightwater Valley October 2013 - Started off a nice day but mid afternoon the rain started and didn't stop. It got dark very quickly too and we were over by the Ultimate at the lowest part of the park and had to get back to the entrance go against the flow of the water running down all the pathways towards us in on badly lit paths. Lightwater must have dreadful drainage as the water used the paths to drain down the where the Ultimate sits.

 

Those are just a few days of weather at parks I can recall.

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In 2005 when I was working at Cedar Point, we had an insane thunderstorm where Wicked Twister and the sky ride got struck by lightning, a kid was struck by lightning in the parking lot, the power went out and there was flash flooding. Luckily I happened to be in Johnny Rockets at the time so I got to stay nice and dry, but it was crazy to watch. And what's even crazier is the day started of completely clear, sunny and 90+ degrees.

 

Cedar Point always has some crazy weather. When I worked there during one of the fall weekends we had a crazy storm come through that took several trees down and ripped the Matterhorn sign down.

 

Being on point during the winter is even worse. That freezing wind coming right off the lake is terrible.

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When I was working at Six Flags St. Louis in the summer of 2012, hurricane Isaac made landfall and made it to St. Louis (post tropical storm at that point).

 

The day before it hit STL, Six Flags decided to close early that day at 4pm instead of 10pm.

 

I got called into work and it was quite an interesting day. The first two hours of working Mr. Freeze we had a total count of 67 riders.

 

Also that day tornadoes were touching down left and right (nothing serious EF0s, many would touch down and lift up, hardly any damage). SFSTL was in the tornado warnings and we had to keep shutting down the ride every time (we were told to keep the people there for safety.) I want to say it happened roughly 3 times. It was honestly quite funny because the warnings were lasting 2-3 minutes, sometimes the siren would start after the fact and cut short. (that is how fast these tornadoes were touching down) and then we would be clear and open the ride.

 

I want to say final attendance was less then 3,000 for the day.

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Aside from the ones Elissa mentioned, when I worked at KBF for Haunt in 2004---the park became a lake because of of heavy rain (by So Cal standards at least). They ended up canceling Haunt the next day because the park was still flooded.

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Riding Colossus at Heide Park on that tour was like having little nails being thrown right at your face. Especially on the forehead. The ride itself was pretty good - but the rain was pretty intense.

HeideParkRainstorm_Colossus.jpg.15d45d0ae7b6cf6db83bf7aa562032be.jpg

Ow ow ow ow. And Craig? I am pretty sure it was the 2008 tour, not the 2010 one. (o;

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I remember the day when I went to Flamingoland in the UK. There was awesome weather, but during afternoon it changed and it started pouring! Have never seen anything like that. The whole parking lot was literally flooded! Couldn't start driving! Sadly, I don't have any photo

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Does anyone have a pic of the storm that rolled into Cedar Point on the Theme Park Review 2007 Midwest Trip? That crazy-ass looking alien-cloud. I think there's a video of it somewhere that Robb took, too.

 

Edit - Actually, Elissa posted the pictures a few pages back!

 

7hrs of rain...

 

Not to mention the night prior to this! The power being out when we got TO the park... at what, 1 or 2AM? There was a bad storm that rolled through, hitting us actually at SFGAm, and pulling ahead of us to Cedar Point. No lights were working on the entire island. I remember Mean Streak looming overhead in near pitch black. Hotel breakers gave us flashlights to find our rooms. A few of us pulled all nighters. It was a great time!

Edited by KrakenKing
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That's it! Shizzz was crazy. Here's a few of us having some "poncho action" as we waited 7hrs for Maverick to finally open after numerous breakdowns and all the rain. This is how it worked... 2hrs, the rain stopped, the ride tested, something broke, they fixed it, then more rain, test, breakdown, fix, rain... for 7hrs! Then the gods FINALLY let us on.

 

206399_5186237500_1384_n.jpg

 

That night was amazing though! Most of the crowds left because of all the rain, so Millennium Force had a 30min wait, Maverick had the longest at an hour, but even TTD we waited only 40min. I believe it was a Saturday, too?

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^I really thought I was going to pass out that day. Wasn't it like 95 degrees at like 9am or something like that?

It reached like 103 in the afternoon. That's HOT! We stayed in Johnny Rocket's for the A/C.

Yeah, by the afternoon we pretty much rode the mine trains, cooled off in Johnny Rockets, rode Mr. Freeze and Batman, cooled off in Johnny Rockets, etc. I wanted to go to the State Fair, but I was kind of afraid of getting heat stroke walking back to the hotel (part of me regrets this).

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^I really thought I was going to pass out that day. Wasn't it like 95 degrees at like 9am or something like that?

It reached like 103 in the afternoon. That's HOT! We stayed in Johnny Rocket's for the A/C.

Yeah, by the afternoon we pretty much rode the mine trains, cooled off in Johnny Rockets, rode Mr. Freeze and Batman, cooled off in Johnny Rockets, etc. I wanted to go to the State Fair, but I was kind of afraid of getting heat stroke walking back to the hotel (part of me regrets this).

State Fair turned out to be pretty cool I think. With all those dark rides and waster spraying on Windstorm. I kind of regret it as well, but it's another reason to return

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I've been at Busch during tornadoes before.

 

Park had a tornado touch down two miles away. Power got cut for a few hours throughout the park (including backup generators). Park closed two hours early that day.

 

There was another random power failure for about an hour later that year. Dunno what exactly caused it.

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^I really thought I was going to pass out that day. Wasn't it like 95 degrees at like 9am or something like that?

It reached like 103 in the afternoon. That's HOT! We stayed in Johnny Rocket's for the A/C.

 

That day was especially awful due to the high humidity, but least we forget that when TPR went to Isla Magica in 2007 the temperature topped out somewhere between 112-114 degrees.

 

I remember Robb and Elissa encountered some ridiculously hot temperatures on their first trip to Italian parks.

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On my visit to Knoebels I was incredibly unlucky and lucky at the same time. We had planned to visit the park for the last 4 hours until close, but due to road closings, traffic, and general group slowness, we didn't get there until just before dark with just over an hour to visit (we were coming up from NC). I had enough time to get in the park, take a picture, find Phoenix, buy a ticket, and get in the queue line just as it got really dark. It was just my luck that the only thunderstorm on the entire east coast was coming in right on top of Knoebels at the same time. The very light rain started and I heard a few rumbles of thunder off in the near distance as I waited in line. It wasn't until I went down the first drop on Phoenix that the rain absolutely dumped from the sky and the lightning picked Knoebels as a target. The combination of not being able to see because of the torrential rain, not being able to see because it was so dark, being a first time rider on Phoenix, and the coaster itself made for a truly terrifying but awesome experience. I thought I was going to die - either from the "airtime buffet" (that I couldn't even see) without a seat belt, or from being struck by lightning. This was probably the best coaster ride of my life though. The weather was not that crazy, the ride was not that crazy, but the two together was completely insane.

1044925096_badluckknoebels.jpg.7ca91cdd792af19456c0b4c070f4a7a0.jpg

I saved this screenshot from the day.

Edited by Grantwhoplayspiano
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During 2007 at KD, I was on the Eiffel Tower. I saw the big dark clouds. So, I got back down to the park, and then after the show was over. It was started raining like crazy and winds. So I got lucky to get out of the park safely, and after that, I heard thundering on the way to the parking lot.

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