Rain Bombs | Full Documentary | NOVA | PBS

You call it " Rain Bombs" I call it" Micro Burst"

Pecos Hank on PBS Nova? Hell yeah lol

Never heard them called rain bombs. Always heard them called microbursts.

Evidently, nobody in the universe, outside of the NOVA production staff, has EVER heard the term " rain bomb" prior to this documentary. Cloudburst, microburst, downpour... but never "rain bomb."

22:48 You call him Hank Schyma, I call him PECOS HANK 🤣🥰🤘👍

It's storms like this that make it understandable that people in the past thought they could anger the gods.

Some beautiful photography in this episode.

In the late 90's I believe they called these micro bursts. One hit North Phoenix Arizona that knocked over 3 feet/1 meter diameter power poles. Even metal ones weren't immune.

PBS, NOVA has been great for the 50 years I've been around.

Thankful for Nova and PBS

Ive never heard of rain bombs. But have heard of microbursts when living in Colorado. Never heard either while living in the Midwest.

Look who it is! It's Hank Pecos the storm chaser! ❤

Edited for typos. It doesn’t take a major thunderstorm. I experienced one of these on I-15 south of Salt Lake City. I was driving south towards Las Vegas, somewhere around US 50 along the edge of the Wasatch Mountains. I had been in and out of rain squalls for the last 30 miles. They were small, scattered thunder clouds, about a quarter mile across, coming from Nevada and blowing east across the valley, then piling up against the mountains. Suddenly, a light squall got so heavy that I could no longer see the semi truck about 4 car lengths in front of me. I slowed, then had to come to a complete stop, since I could no longer see the end of my car. The wind was coming directly from my left side, and the drops were the size of bullets. I put my hand on the window and it felt like it was flexing. I wanted to get out of there. As soon as I let off the brake and the car started to roll, the wheels lost friction, and the car started sliding to the side. The only thing that kept me from sliding off the road was the rumble strip. 30 seconds later it was all over. The cloud had pretty much evaporated. The semi trucks in front of and behind me had been pushed around also. You could see the beaten down area to the left. It was no more than a hundred yards across, and about the same distance from the road. After a pause to catch our breath, we all continued on our way. The rest of the drive, I slowed for every squall. It was a very scary thing to experience. I really can’t explain how violent it was.

I had to look up if “Rain bomb” was the same as a microburst… turns out they are. I have never heard it called a “rain bomb” before. Cool program

Long live NOVA long live PBS !!!

In the early 70's in the Ohio River Valley I would tag along as my father would chase storms. He called these cloud bursts. I've never heard anyone call it a rain bomb before this program. I've lived all over the U.S.A., currently in South Texas. They call them down bursts here. Microburst if it happens before the rain.

Must be "microburst" didn't sound scary enough.

“Rain bomb”? Is this Nova’s attempt to rebrand microbursts for the Tik Tok generation? We had a microburst happen to us a few years ago. It got dark and we expected a typical thunderstorm but what happened instead was a roaring, rushing sound that I was convinced was a tornado, the sky went black and all heck broke loose. It broke trees, blew everything, including my table, off of my deck, ruined people’s vegetable and flower gardens, dropped about an inch of rain in under 20 minutes and then vanished like nothing happened. It only affected about a 3 block by 3 block area in our part of town and was one of the craziest weather phenomena I’ve lived through.

Aviation folks call them microbursts.

I've been taking videos of these for years and met that Olbinski guy in Tucson & showed him my amateur lightning photos as well as photos of the haboobs that form after rain bombs. He was actually shocked that I didn't have any professional set ups or expensive cameras and that the images I caught were still shots from video, especially of the lightning. He's a really nice guy and was really interested in how I was capturing my images with nothing but a normal cell phone or tablet. It looks like he's now using his pro setup to do exactly what I was doing but with much better professional equipment ❤. On a personal note, we've been caught in rain bombs before, several times in recent years, and the wind speeds are absolutely incredible & destructive. The last one brought down a 50 ft willow tree literal inches from our house and into our yard, almost hitting our dog and my husband. I'm glad they are doing more to understand them as with climate change we will be experiencing more and more severe weather ☁️ unless and until we are able to fully commit to real change in how we protect the only planet we've been given by the universe to live on.