Has anyone out there been in an earthquake?  Coming from California (the East Bay) I've been through many small tremblers, but I was out of town when the last major one hit there in the late 1980's.  Then I moved to the Seattle area and was in the 7.0 that hit Seattle around 1994.

  Its errie to feel the ground move under you like a dish of jello.  At first you feel the ground roll, like your in a boat on a rolling sea, and you get a dizzy sensation for an instant.  Then that's followed by a sharp shake, laterally, that shifts the ground back and forth under you.

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 I have to admit my memory fails me on the date, it may have been 2001.  As much as I hate to say it but all the years are beginning to run together!

 But I remember where I was, working inside the carbor silo at work.  I just got it to start filling again when I felt the ground rock, I thought "Maybe I should be outside while this thing is filling." and as I stepped through the silo's door I noticed the silo's pad was rocking too.  That's when I realized an earthquake was going on.  Then the ground shook up and back.  I looked up at the silo and deceided that whichever way it was going to fall I'd run the other way.  The silo didn't fall and in the end the only real damaged at our plant were broken supports to an induction coil and the conductor that went to it.

 It seems to me that the local newspapers were trying to write that quake up as a 7.0, but its final magnitude may have been less.

 Esselbach, were you in the area when the Seattle quake hit?

  I live in Federal Way, about 25 miles south of Seattle, but I work at the steel mill in West Seattle.

  One of my big worries that day was that I would come home and find my entertainment center laying face down!  Its alittle top heavy and still is.  But when I got home I found everything o.k.

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I know where that is. I've been through there many, many times

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The quake left quite a mess. I remember I was doing my schoolwork in my room and heard the distant rumnble. It got closer and when the house started shaking I realized what was happening. I remember being told that a doorway was a safe place under the support beams, but we lived in a mobile home. I ran to my doorway, watched it shaking so bad, that I decided I wouldn't stay there. I remember running down the hallway which had bookshelves along the walls as books and other items were falling.

I remember hearing on the news that aftershocks were possible so I slept fully clothed, with my shoes on that night. Thankfully there were none, and I hope I never have to experience another earthquake in my life

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Most people know mesocyclones as wall clouds.  And, nope!  I don't live in a trailer home.  Thanks for asking!   

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I'm still bitter about this.  The only catastophic event I was ever in - I slept through.  It was a 6.4, if memory serves me right.  Not much I remember about it, for obvious reasons.

The reason why doppler radar is used to verify mesocyclones is because doppler can identify rotation.  However, I don't agree with that definition saying doppler is the only true means of identifying a mesocyclone.  If you're looking out and you see that baby rotating right before your eyes, you have visually identified what a doppler radar picks up through echoes.

And it's an awesome sight.  I've seen a few of them.

Here's a well defined wall-cloud.