Tornado Watch

Yesterday we experienced our first tornado watch.

Yeah, we didn't know what it was either and started to panic because we don't have a basement. Turns out the "watch" is not the part you have to worry about. It's when the watch turns into a tornado warning that you want to run for the tiny closet at the bottom of your stairs because it's the lowest-level coverage you have. Currently, that tiny closet reeks of disgusting cat litter and poop because the previous tenants kept an uncovered, unscooped cat box in there for who knows how long. Yes, we tried Febreze. Yes, we tried bleach. And yes, we even got special cat-odor-remover. It still stinks.

Anyway. The news was having "Severe Weather Report" interruptions for a good chunk of the day because the conditions were right for a tornado. In case you were wondering, our weather has been cooling off (you can definitely tell that summer is coming to an end), but yesterday was like the beginning of July: hot, very humid, sticky, heat index of 95°F for most of the day. But a cold front was moving in from the north with winds of up to 25mph. Apparently this all equaled "Tornado Watch!"


So we cleaned out the closet one more time for good measure (it still stinks), laid some towels at the bottom, and prepared a thick blanket to cover ourselves in case of emergency. And we kept the news on. Oh yeah, and the bearer of the possible tornado? Severe thunderstorms!

Around 5:00pm we could see the dark clouds coming in from the west. By 5:30, we were getting sporadic, heavy downpours. The cat and I watched the rain from our bedroom window. He is my storm buddy, even getting up at night to look out with me. The only time he was scared was during this storm and that one scared me too!

This storm was moving fast, 45-50mph, but it was also incredibly big, so it seemed to continue indefinitely. There was a lot of lightening but not too much thunder. Some places close by also had penny-sized hail, but we were spared this time. Here's a satellite image during the height of the storm. (Red means heavy rain.)

www.wunderground.com

The storm continued for hours and the tornado watch continued as well. We were fortunate that a tornado never formed, if only in that we didn't have to cram into the stinky closet. We finally saw the end around 11:30pm, but we were not disappointed by the light show.

I took this video around 10:00pm (after this had been going on for a while) and pointed the camera directly up to the sky. This camera has a bit of trouble picking up changes in light, but I think you'll get the idea. The video is almost 6 minutes long, so if you're not as excited by thunderstorms as I am, make sure to at least watch the impressive bit from 1:10 to 1:20.

I posted the whole video to give you a sense of the drama. The constant flashes went on for about two hours and we could still see them over the neighboring town after the clouds had passed us. It was pretty exciting!


In other, non-storm-related news, you might have noticed that I have a new page (designated by the tab at the top of the blog), called "Fauna". I posted a number of pictures of the beautiful animals we've been seeing, so check it out!

Hope everyone has a happy Friday and a great weekend.