And the Rain Was Horizontal
It was a wild weather day yesterday, with terrible storms all over the state. The meteorologists on TV were fumbling at times, almost overwhelmed by it all. You could tell they were sometimes at a loss trying to decide which storm to cover because there were tornadoes everywhere. At one point, Mike Morgan (on our NBC affiliate) ran his hand through his hair, and all he could say was, "This is bad. This is really, really bad. This is very bad."
Which summed it up nicely, actually.
It did make for compelling TV, though. Our major TV stations have invested big bucks in purchasing their own fancy weather radars. Some of them are as good as (maybe better than?) the radars used by the NWS, so they are able to track tornadoes pretty precisely. Yesterday we had many long-track, very strong tornadoes tearing across the state, and we got to watch them on radar. "This is the debris ball from the tornado." And you could clearly see a compact circle superimposed on the street maps. You don't always get to see debris balls on radar... only if the tornado is pretty large and/or strong and is kicking up a lot of debris. It was a bit horrifying to track multiple debris balls across the state, knowing that you were watching trees and houses and people's lives being destroyed.
A lot of times, you get to watch video of the tornadoes, too, because the TV stations have their own fleet of storm chasers that provide streaming video of the storms. We did get some views yesterday, but many of the tornadoes were wrapped in rain, so there wasn't much to see. David Payne, a storm chaser with the NBC affiliate, is a crazy, crazy man, and he got some amazing pictures of the wedge tornado that hit El Reno. The footage of the telephone and power poles snapping around him was particularly compelling. I'm sure I wasn't the only person in the state screaming at the TV, telling him to get the heck out of there because they were showing it live.
By the time one of the storms got to Stillwater, there was so much going on in the state that the TV stations were not focusing on our storm, which was weaker than some of the others. One of the stations mentioned that the sirens were going off in Stillwater, another mentioned that debris from Guthrie was falling from the sky in Stillwater. Since we didn't have live radar on TV to follow, Kate and I didn't really know where the wall cloud/tornado was in relation to us, so when the winds started blowing our trees horizontal, we gathered the pets and went into our shelter. Things calmed down for a bit, and we came out again, got the TV on, and they showed a brief glimpse of the radar in the Stillwater area. I noticed an inflow notch that looked like it was heading right for our house. Hmmmm.
Everything was calm outside... not necessarily a good sign... and then we noticed a very low-hanging cloud heading right over the house. Kate and I watched it... "Does that look like it's rotating to you?" "No, not really, but we may not be seeing the whole thing." "Yeah, it certainly looks like it's connected to the cloud base, doesn't it?" "I don't think it's just scud."
Then all hell broke loose.
I swear the trees were bent double, branches started flying, the rain was horizontal, and Kate and I grabbed cats and scooted back into our shelter.
At some point, the power went out. (And stayed out until 6am this morning. But, we have a back-up generator, so things could have been worse.)
Once the storm had passed, we went out to assess damage. We have branches down, but no trees, and some of my flowers have been smashed flat. I'm afraid the the baby downy woodpeckers were casualties because we haven't heard them yet today, and that's very sad. We were lucky, though. A house was destroyed two miles to our west, and there was significant damage to trees and buildings about a mile to our north. We were close to the path of the worst part of the storm, but not directly in it.
ETA: It was an EF-2 tornado which hit Stillwater.
Which summed it up nicely, actually.
It did make for compelling TV, though. Our major TV stations have invested big bucks in purchasing their own fancy weather radars. Some of them are as good as (maybe better than?) the radars used by the NWS, so they are able to track tornadoes pretty precisely. Yesterday we had many long-track, very strong tornadoes tearing across the state, and we got to watch them on radar. "This is the debris ball from the tornado." And you could clearly see a compact circle superimposed on the street maps. You don't always get to see debris balls on radar... only if the tornado is pretty large and/or strong and is kicking up a lot of debris. It was a bit horrifying to track multiple debris balls across the state, knowing that you were watching trees and houses and people's lives being destroyed.
A lot of times, you get to watch video of the tornadoes, too, because the TV stations have their own fleet of storm chasers that provide streaming video of the storms. We did get some views yesterday, but many of the tornadoes were wrapped in rain, so there wasn't much to see. David Payne, a storm chaser with the NBC affiliate, is a crazy, crazy man, and he got some amazing pictures of the wedge tornado that hit El Reno. The footage of the telephone and power poles snapping around him was particularly compelling. I'm sure I wasn't the only person in the state screaming at the TV, telling him to get the heck out of there because they were showing it live.
By the time one of the storms got to Stillwater, there was so much going on in the state that the TV stations were not focusing on our storm, which was weaker than some of the others. One of the stations mentioned that the sirens were going off in Stillwater, another mentioned that debris from Guthrie was falling from the sky in Stillwater. Since we didn't have live radar on TV to follow, Kate and I didn't really know where the wall cloud/tornado was in relation to us, so when the winds started blowing our trees horizontal, we gathered the pets and went into our shelter. Things calmed down for a bit, and we came out again, got the TV on, and they showed a brief glimpse of the radar in the Stillwater area. I noticed an inflow notch that looked like it was heading right for our house. Hmmmm.
Everything was calm outside... not necessarily a good sign... and then we noticed a very low-hanging cloud heading right over the house. Kate and I watched it... "Does that look like it's rotating to you?" "No, not really, but we may not be seeing the whole thing." "Yeah, it certainly looks like it's connected to the cloud base, doesn't it?" "I don't think it's just scud."
Then all hell broke loose.
I swear the trees were bent double, branches started flying, the rain was horizontal, and Kate and I grabbed cats and scooted back into our shelter.
At some point, the power went out. (And stayed out until 6am this morning. But, we have a back-up generator, so things could have been worse.)
Once the storm had passed, we went out to assess damage. We have branches down, but no trees, and some of my flowers have been smashed flat. I'm afraid the the baby downy woodpeckers were casualties because we haven't heard them yet today, and that's very sad. We were lucky, though. A house was destroyed two miles to our west, and there was significant damage to trees and buildings about a mile to our north. We were close to the path of the worst part of the storm, but not directly in it.
ETA: It was an EF-2 tornado which hit Stillwater.