I believe that was the eye. I found it fascinating at the time, and looked up the satellite image.

There appeared to be a lot less storm on the trailing side of the eye. I have no idea why.

Maybe you could get Frank Roylance to come over here for a guest blogger stint.

I wondered the same thing about that sunny spell. It struck me as odd that the two halves of the storm were so different. It was spitting rain, but not all that windy before the sun, dark and windy but dry after.

For all I know that is normal. We didn't get many hurricanes when I was a sprog in Michigan (although we did get one, even if the weathermen refuse to call it that, and don't want to talk about it).

Lissa - A hurricane in Michigan? You have to talk about it. It's too interesting not to.

There was a huge rainbow during that sunny time - anybody else catch it?

Bucky, we all called it the Green Storm, it was late 70's or so. It had an eye. When Dad woke us to go to the basement, it was so dark we thought it was the middle of the night (it was after 9 am). Dad was without power for 3 days, Mom for 3 weeks, others longer.

A friend of my mother's was out in her car, and was convinced she was going to die, so she put her drivers' license in her bra so they could identify her (she was fine).

It met all the criteria for a hurricane, except you can't have hurricanes in Detroit. The Great Lakes are big and have nasty weather, but not that nasty.

The meteorologists don't want to talk about it. Worst storm I've been through.

You people should be outdoors on a gorgeous Sunday like today.

But to try to answer your questions: Yes, I saw the sunshine, too, and like you I was a little surprised. I was trying to post something to the WeatherBlog about how much rain we were getting. I looked outside and saw sunshine. And then the power to my neighborhood went out, and shut me down.

That was not the "eye," which was never very well defined with Hanna, and in any case the storm's center passed over Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore, not Baltimore.

Hanna was being pretty badly torn apart by then as her remains were accelerated up the East Coast. What we saw late in the afternoon, I think, was actually relatively clear, dry air that was being drawn into the trailing edge of the storm as it raced away to the north and east.

I missed the rainbow, but it doesn't surprise me. Take late afternoon sunshine, beaming from a low angle from your west toward rain showers to your east, and you will very often get a rainbow as the droplets refract the light and spread it out into its constituent colors.

Thanks for asking me over. Bon apetit!

We were in South Florida for Wilma in 2005, the last "big" storm to hit Palm Beach County. That was when we discovered what you have observed -- the front of the storm brings the rain but the back brings the wind.

We could hear the wind and rain start around 6:30 in the morning and just stayed in bed, under the covers. Around 10:30 it became dead silent and, yes, the sun came out. My wife asked if it was over and I had to tell her it hadn't really begun yet.

This was the last week of October and FPL [the power company] was predicting that some folks would not get electricity restored until Thanksgiving. Needless to say, we paid the penalty and changed our flight home to the first one out of Ft. Lauderdale. The airport was the first place we had been in 4 days that had power, A/C, real food [well, sort of...]

I was away last week and didn't realize you did not do a Sunday restaurant review. I spent 15 minutes searching several sections - not even a peep from section/page editors about your column.
I thought the "newly invented" Sun was supposed to be more readable, friendly, etc. Each section should note on it's front page who's with us this week and who isn't - basic keeping your readers informed. Guess some editors still haven't got it!

Speaking of "newly invented," The Sun-Sentinal, a sister newspaper to The Baltimore Sun, created almost as much panic on wall street as Pappy Yokum this morning by republishing a 2002 Chicago Tribune article about United Airlines declaring bankruptcy. Bloomburg News service picked up on it and enough people blieved it that their stock dropped to 1 cent and trading was stopped.

I was in Nags Head last week and was there for Hanna, the tv made us think we were in for a bad night in OBX. We waited but it never happend. I was on the beach Friday till dark and in the afternoon Sat. It was sunny and hot, just a little windy.

In honor of tropical storm season and for Bucky (in about a week?)a little old REO Speedwagon
:
Riding the storm out
Waiting for the fallout
On a full moon night in the Rocky Mountain winter
Wine bottle's low
Watching for the snow
I've been thinking about what I've been missing in the city

And I'm not missing a thing
Watching the full moon crossing the range
Riding the storm out
Riding the storm out
Riding the storm out
Riding the storm out

Atlantic Canada got slammed hard by Hanna. It was nothing here, but up there, after a summer of nothing but rain, it was pretty serious.

Those are folks who know from weather, too.

Bucky, I think the Green Storm of my youth was a derecho. Probably the Independence Day Derecho of 1977, possibly the More Trees Down Derecho.

I'm a gonna regret trying, but I found this page fascinating.

Lissa - that's pretty scary, for sure. I hate any kind of weather event that as strong wind as one of its integral components--hurricane, tornado, and now, derecho.

Dining@Large: "The Only Blog You'll Ever Need."

Bucky, it was scary. After phone calls back to Detroit, it was almost certainly the More Trees Down Derecho (what a lovely and terrible name for a storm). Mom said the trees behind her house laid flat, and she could see the houses a quarter mile away.

Never heard of derechos before. The more I read, the more they scare me. Forget tornadoes, these are much worse.

Fascinating! I took Wind & Weather for the Serious Yachtsman in college (and believe me, when I transferred to JHU, they just laughed!), and I've been very interested in weather all my life. I've never heard of a derecho.