Perpetual Ruminations

Friday

Feeling quite a bit better today, but still not getting much done. That's alright, it's been a tough week and it's kind of nice to just take it easy after everything. Besides, it's early yet and I may just end up getting something accomplished yet this afternoon. Yesterday I was just really out of it, and then the weather turned bad, all bad, just bad.

Today is nice, but very hot and humid again. As far as I know, no storms for the afternoon. Yesterday it hit like a freight train. From a nice, but overcast day it turned dark and nasty in just minutes. I was in here, writing my blog when it first started. The sky turned black in less than a minute and the rumbling and lightning shortly after that. I finished my journal as the first few raindrops hit, and by the time I had my computer shutting down, I couldn't see across the street it was raining so hard.

By the time I checked the weather on my phone, it was rumbling in the heavens like a giant train bearing down right on me. The rain continued to flood down, mixed with hail and then wind. I had shut windows before much water had blown in, and just sat back down when the house began to vibrate and shake. It felt like a small earthquake for almost a minute, then passed. I couldn't see anything outside, between the darkness of the sky and the heavy rain, but I could hear the raging beast overhead.

No warnings, not even after it past over. With the rain so heavy, there was nothing to see, but I would have thought that radar would have picked up the energy being unleashed. Rhonda was at work, north and east of where we live, in a straight line with this storm. She watched the clouds as they came in, and said there was a big funnel forming in them way to the southwest, but it only hung for a minute or less and then snapped back up into the black, swirling cloud mass. They also got the rain and hail, some wind but not much as the storm passed over.

Today, on Facebook, I see pictures of the same storm as it passed over and headed into Minnesota. From the photographs posted, it's easy to see just how big this funnel was, it just never dropped it's tail to the ground. Off and on it swirled and formed, then slowed and lifted back into the clouds. Luckily, it never did fully develop into a tornado, but it was pretty close a few times. Even so, nothing has been reported, officially, that a tornado even passed over.

That's kind of scary knowing that there is no early warning for us. Even when severe storms and funnels have been seen to the southwest of us and then again to the northeast, we have not had any warnings from the weather service. It's like we don't exist on their maps or radar. They broadcast warnings for Willow Lake, southwest of us, and then again for Thomas, northeast and along the same line of travel, but nothing for us in between the two.

I'm sure there's a reason, and someone could easily explain why this is, but there is little consolation knowing that we are on our own in sever weather. It helps knowing the path of the storm and the locations; we can plot it's course and know if it's going to pass over us or not. Also, the weather radar gives us warning of approaching storms, if we have reason to look and see what's coming our way. Yesterday it hit too fast, and by the time I had the weather up and on my phone, it was already passing over and leaving the area.