Lately, my posting seems to be weather related. The last one celebrated a much needed rain. This one however celebrates the fact that a tornado did not hit my house. I will admit it passed six miles away, but that is about one hundred miles to close for me. The photo shows the gathering storm clouds Saturday. What I thought was going to be an ordinary thunderstorm, turned out to be one on steroids. About three PM, Sharon called me from across town (visiting with a friend just out of the hospital) and asked if I had heard about the tornado. What tornado? I turned on the tube and there it was indicated on the radar very close by. Then there were reports that it was on the ground. Time to head for that room without windows I thought. I looked out the bedroom window and saw what looked like smoke. It was in reality, a wall of very hard rain, moving very fast. It reminded me of a wave on the ocean.
As it turned out this was a wimpy one as tornadoes go. It was over very quickly and was an F-0 with 75 mph winds. It was enough however, to rip the top from a mobile home, roll another over and into a third, and uproot some gimongous trees. Fortunately no one was hurt. A second tornado (also small thank goodness) touched down about twenty miles to the north a few minutes later. Minor damage there and also no one injured. I tried to find someone with pictures of the funnel cloud, but could not. It was said to be about one hundred yards wide. Again, small as tornadoes go, but big enough for me.