Tuesday, June 25, 2013

You've Come A Long Way, Baby!

Congratulations Eagle Scout Seth!



Wednesday, June 5, 2013

May 31st storm

So Friday the "weather experts" said we could have some storms coming through our area.  It was actually rather sunny and nice weather so it didn't really seem like we'd have any storms.
But it was pretty humid.
As the afternoon progressed we did have some cloud cover start up.  Still a nice, pleasant day.  I worked in the kitchen and the kids did their normal kid thing around the house.  Jason came home from work and it was a nice, relaxed Friday afternoon.
The clouds coming in were starting to look like the "cotton ball" clouds that you see sometimes.  The bottom of the clouds look like rows of cotton balls pushed together.  They are very pretty clouds.  The last time I saw any was during the Joplin tornado storm. But the cotton ball clouds passed along their way and everything was quiet.
And humid.
Very humid.
Bleh!
I stepped out the front door for something--probably to check on the dogs or other routine things--and noticed a faint sound in the distance, just enough to catch my attention.  I stopped and focused toward the east and sure enough, I could hear the storm siren in town going off.
(We are a little ways out of town so we don't often hear the storm siren but if there isn't too much wind and we are in the front yard we can sometimes hear it.)
I thought it was rather strange that the siren would be going--the sky did not look like a storm sky at all.  In fact, there was just this funny cloud that I took a picture of:
I came inside, told Jason and the kids the storm sirens were going off so maybe we should check the news and everyone just went back to what they were doing because it was such a pleasant afternoon it just didn't feel like there could be a storm. (All the old-timers around here will tell you it's the "quiet" storms that spit out tornadoes, not the loud ones like what we expect.)
I pulled up the weather app on my phone and it showed that we were under a tornado warning.
Hmmm.
I decided to take a look out from the back of the house to see the sky from that direction.
OK, that looks a little more like a storm.  
Camera time!
As you can see at the very beginning of the following video (the stripey clouds) the thing was already rotating:
It was a beautiful sky!  There was only a soft breeze stirring the air a bit.  The colors were amazing and the thunder was echoing through the valleys.  Cool!
Jason and the kids brought some chairs out onto the deck so we could watch the show.
(Please forgive the grainy-ness of the pictures--my camera does that when it is really super humid.)



We watched as the big super-cell marched closer and closer to us...




We began to see that eerie "green" light that shows up in these big tornadic storms.  
It started feeling kind of creepy. 

Then it quickly went very dark--like night suddenly coming on.

The worst of the storm seemed to be to the north of us.  That was kind of a relief because these storms (and tornadoes) usually move in a Southwest to Northeast direction.  We seemed to be on the "safe" side of the storm.  
And this is what came out of the clouds on that side of town (at least we were spared from this)...

While reassuring myself that we were sitting pretty in our little spot I looked over just in time to see Katie step up and do a "oh no you di'nt!" at the storm.  
No, Katie, NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!  When the storm is being nice to us we do not make it angry!!!!!!
The storm took one look at Katie, said "excuse me?!" and turned RIGHT TOWARD US!  
Oh, Katie, what have you done?!  You've killed us all!!!!!!!!  
(o.k., maybe it wasn't that bad but it sounded good, didn't it?!)  
Well, the north side of the storm did turn.  Suddenly everything that was moving Northeast started swinging South.  
It is a bad feeling, I mean a REALLY bad feeling, when you see that. 
I've seen the sky do this a couple of times before and I got to see a tornado from it. 
The winds picked up and began to gust violently.  
So, of course I turned my camera to video. (You can't smack me from this distance, Mom!  Ha!!!!!)  
You could feel the winds almost kind of sucking you upwards.  It was a crazy sensation.  It definitely made you feel lighter. 
Finally!  A diet plan I can stick to!  Lose 20 lbs. in 1 minute!  Wheee!!!!!!!
Back to the video... Notice the leaf get sucked up into the sky.  I've seen leaves get sucked straight up into the sky before too.  That would be when the little baby tornado hit our house and I looked straight up in the sky and watched leaves go straight up and swirl around hundreds of feet above me.  
No, not really something you ever want to actually see in real life.  
Ever.
So when I saw leaves starting to fly straight up I got a little panicy (let's not tell anyone, though, K?!)
Oh, and yes, my stupid boys took this opportunity to play "storm chicken."  
"What is storm chicken?" you ask. 
Well, you haven't really lived yet, have you?!  
Storm chicken is when you stand outside in the storm and the first one to run inside is the chicken.  
Teenage boys need to be killed.  
So I locked them all out of the house.
Anyways.  
So we went out to the front of the house to see the progress of the storm (good thing we've got a storm safe room in our house!).  
We began to get a little rain and there was a little grape-sized hail with it.  
The two sides of the storm (North and South) were converging directly in front of us and where they came together you could see the clouds lifting up and swirling. 
My camera didn't it capture it very well but if you look carefully you should be able to kind of see it right in the center...
So, what do you do to appease the crazy storm spirits?
You got it!...
Hey, don't judge!  They like bubbles!
Well, so, there you go.  
Another fun storm.  
Maybe next time there will be more pictures of the inside of the storm room.  
Yeah, right, dream on, Mom! hee hee hee

Oh!  I almost forgot!
And this is what happens when you paint your toenails during tornado weather! 
Gotta watch out for those swirl-ey clouds! ;)