Severe Weather

I chanced to look out the window at dinner and noticed the sky becoming quite dark. The air was dead still-after a day of fairly constant wind. I excused myself, grabbed the camera and headed outside to snap a few photos of the strange cloud formations.

In the time it took to walk to the end of our sidewalk (about ten seconds) the wind began to blow and looking up I could see the clouds racing towards me from the south. It was like something out of a movie-my hair blowing, the clouds racing past revealing sunbeams for a second. Then, it turned completely black and the wind zipped over my head and I felt the first raindrops. I headed back in. Those ten seconds it takes to get to my back door were all it took for a full-fledged storm to come in and the door slammed hard behind me as I made it to the house.

The boys were still eating dinner when I returned.

"I'll bet the weather radio will be going off any minute. You should see what it's doing out there."

The words were barely out of my mouth when the wind began shaking the house and hail bounced off the window air conditioner. I went to check the weather radio only to discover it was unplugged. Oops, time to get new batteries. I plugged it in just in time for the familiar alarm to sound.

The only thing worse than hearing a warning for your county is hearing your very small town mentioned by name. That's bad. We bundled ourselves on the lowest floor away from windows and doors and all the things they tell you to do and as quick as it came in, it ended. I pulled myself together and cleaned up the dinner dishes.

We're supposed to be in for a long night and tomorrow is predicted to be more of the same. Afterward, we heard that there were 70 mph winds-hurricane force gales, and like an idiot, I was outside waiting to get hit in the head by flying debris. If you haven't checked the batteries in your weather radio yet this season, learn from my mistake and do so.

Now for the strange part-things are strewn all over the damn farm but somehow my container garden of herbs on the patio not only didn't budge, but withstood the hail. The flowers and other vegetables look OK as well. And hey, our satellite dish for the Internet service is still running-that's pretty good.

I have a feeling it will be a very long night.