Weather Report
The severe rain yesterday never hit - oh we had a downpour that lasted about 30 seconds, but other than annoying occasional drizzle, nothing else. So we got Liam dressed last night for soccer practice, walked to the car when we got the phone call that practice was canceled, not for the rain, but because the coach was in a multi-car pileup on the interstate. Youch.
The rain finally hit last night after I went to sleep. I know this because my neighbor called at 12:03am to tell me that we were now under a Tornado Warning for my town. The sky was purple and the rain torrential. No lightning that I saw and very rare thunder.
I poked Will, who told me to let him know if the tornado hit before going back to sleep. This is Will's normal response to severe overnight weather. Hurricane Opal hit Atlanta in early October 1995 with 80 mph winds and 8" of rain. I stayed up all night, looking at the trees bent over in the yard, waiting for one to break and tear off the roof. Will slept through it, no matter how much I tried to wake him. In April of 1998 we had actual tornado touchdowns in our neighborhood - with some houses one street over sustaining significant damage. The phone rang for hours with worried friends and families making sure we were awake and taking necessary precautions. I was. Will fell back asleep on the couch as I cleaned out the closet in the center of the house.
Later it occurred to me that while having an interior closet is great if you don't have a basement, it does kind of defeat the purpose if it requires five minutes of emptying out prior to taking refuge. We have a basement now.
So - last night I turned on the tv and switched to the Weather Channel, then all four major network channels. Generally in cases of tornado warnings (vs. tornado watches), a meterorologist will be standing in front of the radar and pointing the path of the storm. Instead it was regular programming as usual on all five channels. The only knowledge that there was a tornado warning was the flashing red bar on the bottom of the screen, telling me that there was a tornado somewhere in my county. Helpful, but more information would have been nice.
I've grown up with tornados and was even in one in high school. Tornados in Georgia are numerous, but rarely the size and danger of the tornados that are spawned in the middle of the US. They just don't worry me as much as they should. Maybe once every two years we'll end up in the basement. And if I'm honest, I probably would rather deal with a tornado than whiny children at 1am. Since I couldn't find any information on TV, I looked up the radar, and searched for the cells. One, was directly on top of us. Another one - about 10 miles to the east. The one to the east had a classic hook echo that even I could recognize. Or at least I convinced myself I did. (At 12:30am I could have convinced myself I saw Glinda dancing a jig with Spongebob in that supercell.) The one on top of us didn't. I spent more time groggily searching and finally found that I was correct, that the cell 10 miles to the east was actually the one they issued the tornado warning for. I considered that permission and validation to stay in bed.
Now that I'm awake, I am realizing that it probably wasn't the best & safest move to spend 15 minutes second-guessing the tornado warning. After all - by the time one hit I wouldn't have had enough time to wake up and move four human bodies (plus two dogs, one cat) to the basement. I probably should have carried everyone down there when the warning first went off, bringing the laptop with me to see if it was valid. What is it - God protects fools, drunks and children? I definitely fall into at least one of those categories.
The rain finally hit last night after I went to sleep. I know this because my neighbor called at 12:03am to tell me that we were now under a Tornado Warning for my town. The sky was purple and the rain torrential. No lightning that I saw and very rare thunder.
I poked Will, who told me to let him know if the tornado hit before going back to sleep. This is Will's normal response to severe overnight weather. Hurricane Opal hit Atlanta in early October 1995 with 80 mph winds and 8" of rain. I stayed up all night, looking at the trees bent over in the yard, waiting for one to break and tear off the roof. Will slept through it, no matter how much I tried to wake him. In April of 1998 we had actual tornado touchdowns in our neighborhood - with some houses one street over sustaining significant damage. The phone rang for hours with worried friends and families making sure we were awake and taking necessary precautions. I was. Will fell back asleep on the couch as I cleaned out the closet in the center of the house.
Later it occurred to me that while having an interior closet is great if you don't have a basement, it does kind of defeat the purpose if it requires five minutes of emptying out prior to taking refuge. We have a basement now.
So - last night I turned on the tv and switched to the Weather Channel, then all four major network channels. Generally in cases of tornado warnings (vs. tornado watches), a meterorologist will be standing in front of the radar and pointing the path of the storm. Instead it was regular programming as usual on all five channels. The only knowledge that there was a tornado warning was the flashing red bar on the bottom of the screen, telling me that there was a tornado somewhere in my county. Helpful, but more information would have been nice.
I've grown up with tornados and was even in one in high school. Tornados in Georgia are numerous, but rarely the size and danger of the tornados that are spawned in the middle of the US. They just don't worry me as much as they should. Maybe once every two years we'll end up in the basement. And if I'm honest, I probably would rather deal with a tornado than whiny children at 1am. Since I couldn't find any information on TV, I looked up the radar, and searched for the cells. One, was directly on top of us. Another one - about 10 miles to the east. The one to the east had a classic hook echo that even I could recognize. Or at least I convinced myself I did. (At 12:30am I could have convinced myself I saw Glinda dancing a jig with Spongebob in that supercell.) The one on top of us didn't. I spent more time groggily searching and finally found that I was correct, that the cell 10 miles to the east was actually the one they issued the tornado warning for. I considered that permission and validation to stay in bed.
Now that I'm awake, I am realizing that it probably wasn't the best & safest move to spend 15 minutes second-guessing the tornado warning. After all - by the time one hit I wouldn't have had enough time to wake up and move four human bodies (plus two dogs, one cat) to the basement. I probably should have carried everyone down there when the warning first went off, bringing the laptop with me to see if it was valid. What is it - God protects fools, drunks and children? I definitely fall into at least one of those categories.