The harrowing ride home
As I mentioned this morning, today's weather likely would be volatile. That panned out.
Around 6 PM, the light show started. Lots of lightning in the air.
At 6:45, my main room renter's last client, at 7 PM, called off because the weather was bad by him and he chose to stay safe. (He chose wisely.) The other remaining room renter left about that time, and she takes the train, so I wished her well. Eventually I'd hear that trains were stopped due to the severe weather.
At 7, the main room renter finished up and she and her client both left. At that point it was dry outside.
Shortly after, I'm walking around finishing some of my closing routine and I turn off the radio, and then I hear this odd sound. I'm moving my bag and coat and pull out my phone to check it, and I have a text and two missed calls, with voicemails, from my dad. The text said tornado sirens were going off, and it was sent only a few minutes before I saw the text. That's when it dawned on me, that was the sound I was hearing. I called my house and looked up the radar. There was a confirmed tornado on the ground west of my house and the active warning was over my town. I was told to stay put while the weather passed.
I checked in with BBC, who was off at the regular weekly work thing. He sent a picture from the basement of the building where they were sheltering.
DW checked in with me. He stayed home sick yesterday and skipped tonight's work thing, and he asked if I was in the basement. I told him I was still at work and he suggested a place to go. Between our bathrooms and the client meeting rooms, we have a few places to go.
Laura checked in with me around when I was trying to leave. At least she was safe at home.
The severe threat at home had passed by 7:30, so I decided to brave it. I locked up the front building, I locked up the back building, and by that point it was raining pretty hard outside. Pretty much as soon as I got in my car, it became torrential--and crap, is that hail?
Going north from work, the rain was so hard that it was difficult to make out the lanes. Wipers were on hyper; several cars were driving with their hazard lights on. The word that kept coming to mind was "harrowing." I'm pretty sure I hit hail a second time. I considered pulling over a couple times but kept going.
Once I hit Warrenville? Clear. Just a normal rainstorm, albeit with a ton of lightning in the air. O'Hare hit a high of 74F, just one shy of the record, which would also be the all-time record high for February. That's a typical temperature for the end of May, not the end of February. No wonder the weather was so volatile.
One of the hardest hit places so far is Waubonsee CC, my other alma mater, where a bunch of trees are down. Given that it happened at night, we won't be able to tell certain damage until daylight, which is 8 hours away at this point. So far nobody in the immediate area appears to be hurt, which is great, but some of the pictures showed ping pong ball-sized hail. I'm not surprised. Right by work, it sounded really bad and I was really concerned about my car.
But I'm home. I made it home safely. And for the second year in a row, at the end of February, we've legitimately dealt with tornados.
Around 6 PM, the light show started. Lots of lightning in the air.
At 6:45, my main room renter's last client, at 7 PM, called off because the weather was bad by him and he chose to stay safe. (He chose wisely.) The other remaining room renter left about that time, and she takes the train, so I wished her well. Eventually I'd hear that trains were stopped due to the severe weather.
At 7, the main room renter finished up and she and her client both left. At that point it was dry outside.
Shortly after, I'm walking around finishing some of my closing routine and I turn off the radio, and then I hear this odd sound. I'm moving my bag and coat and pull out my phone to check it, and I have a text and two missed calls, with voicemails, from my dad. The text said tornado sirens were going off, and it was sent only a few minutes before I saw the text. That's when it dawned on me, that was the sound I was hearing. I called my house and looked up the radar. There was a confirmed tornado on the ground west of my house and the active warning was over my town. I was told to stay put while the weather passed.
I checked in with BBC, who was off at the regular weekly work thing. He sent a picture from the basement of the building where they were sheltering.
DW checked in with me. He stayed home sick yesterday and skipped tonight's work thing, and he asked if I was in the basement. I told him I was still at work and he suggested a place to go. Between our bathrooms and the client meeting rooms, we have a few places to go.
Laura checked in with me around when I was trying to leave. At least she was safe at home.
The severe threat at home had passed by 7:30, so I decided to brave it. I locked up the front building, I locked up the back building, and by that point it was raining pretty hard outside. Pretty much as soon as I got in my car, it became torrential--and crap, is that hail?
Going north from work, the rain was so hard that it was difficult to make out the lanes. Wipers were on hyper; several cars were driving with their hazard lights on. The word that kept coming to mind was "harrowing." I'm pretty sure I hit hail a second time. I considered pulling over a couple times but kept going.
Once I hit Warrenville? Clear. Just a normal rainstorm, albeit with a ton of lightning in the air. O'Hare hit a high of 74F, just one shy of the record, which would also be the all-time record high for February. That's a typical temperature for the end of May, not the end of February. No wonder the weather was so volatile.
One of the hardest hit places so far is Waubonsee CC, my other alma mater, where a bunch of trees are down. Given that it happened at night, we won't be able to tell certain damage until daylight, which is 8 hours away at this point. So far nobody in the immediate area appears to be hurt, which is great, but some of the pictures showed ping pong ball-sized hail. I'm not surprised. Right by work, it sounded really bad and I was really concerned about my car.
But I'm home. I made it home safely. And for the second year in a row, at the end of February, we've legitimately dealt with tornados.