vikingshadow
05-06-2007, 05:15 AM
Well, just got up, turned on the weather and it looks like the family and I will be heading to the fraidy-hole again today!
Bad weather started Friday - tornados all around us. I was literally watching one form just to the East of me when I had the wife and kids get in the shelter. That one didn't get enough energy in it and fell apart. Spent about 1 and a half hours with that one.
Last night, I wasn't even watching the weather - I've been fighting a sinus headache for a week, and not getting much sleep so I was watching some mindless tv show to get myself to drift off when my youngest daughter came in and asked for an umbrella to play in the rain. In my haze, I remembered the weather predicting WORSE storms last night, so I quickly turned the channel and they were telling people in Woodward to get to their shelters NOW! We had about 10 minutes and the big storm was going to hit. My wife was at a jewelry party across town, so I called her to get her home, then got the kids dressed, grabbed the dog and off we went.
Last night was brutal - at least one town to the southwest of us was devastated - it would have been MUCH worse, had the town been bigger. But we weren't even close to that particular storm yet. Just as we got to the cellar, I (like all good and proper men) stayed up top and watched it - it was the darkest most ominous storm I've seen in 20 years living here. I watched as the storm fed into two lowerings and dropped two tornadoes just south of town. Fortunately, they bounced right back up. Problem was, these storms were only moving about 15-20 mph, so it was a LONG storm. The sirens went off for this one, my wife makes it home - we both go down inside, the kids are crying and the dog is going nuts....20 minutes later, we come out.
Now, that was just the warmup at about 7:00. A bigger, much more powerful storm was SLOWLY making it's way toward us from the southwest. It was only about 30 miles away, but it frequently anchored itself to the ground (with tornados) and stopped moving predictably. So I left the wife and kids in the cellar, and watched the weather for about an hour - they couldn't seem to figure out what to do with this one....very scary! So, off I go, back to the cellar again. We spend another 30-40 minutes there this tie and come back out to watch even MORE weather.
BUT, the most powerful cell of the night was still behind this one and moving extremely slow, and about two counties away with it's bullseye right on Woodward. Very scary. I think it dropped at least 3 F4 tornados, the weather guys say possibly even an F5, and it hadn't weakened after 3 hours. In fact, it was just as strong as ever. It had hit Sweetwater early, and dropped numerous funnels in the farmlands.
After spending nearly 4 hours in or near the cellar, I bring the family inside and watch the weather around 10:30. A line of storms had developed in the Texas panhandle and were moving this way, but the supercell I was just talking about kept turning right, so we finally moved out of it's path - no more tornados for us last night. However, we continued to get HAMMERED with hail, wind and rain for the rest of the night. About about 4:00, I gave up and headed off to bed.
Jump to 7:30 this morning - I wake up and it's STILL raining, hailing and windy. The weather guys show a large storm over us again and are saying that we have as big of, if not bigger, chance of severe weather again today - only they think it's going to be across a much larger section of the state this time. Thing that worries me is that on Friday and Saturday, the weather in the morning was decent, a little windy, but not bad. Today, it's starting off crappy and it's only going to get worse, according to them. I don't know, but I'm pretty tired.
Forecast shows chances of severe weather today, tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Sounds like it's going to be a LONG week.....Don't get me wrong, we aren't the only ones getting hit - as of about 9:00 last night, they mentioned about 50 tornados hitting all up and down a line from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. A town in Kansas (Greensburg) was 90% destroyed on Friday night, then got hit again last night. I actually used to live close to Greensburg many years ago.
This is the largest outbreak of storms in this area that I remember in my 41 years. So, if you don't see me on much for the next few days, you pretty much know why now.
Bad weather started Friday - tornados all around us. I was literally watching one form just to the East of me when I had the wife and kids get in the shelter. That one didn't get enough energy in it and fell apart. Spent about 1 and a half hours with that one.
Last night, I wasn't even watching the weather - I've been fighting a sinus headache for a week, and not getting much sleep so I was watching some mindless tv show to get myself to drift off when my youngest daughter came in and asked for an umbrella to play in the rain. In my haze, I remembered the weather predicting WORSE storms last night, so I quickly turned the channel and they were telling people in Woodward to get to their shelters NOW! We had about 10 minutes and the big storm was going to hit. My wife was at a jewelry party across town, so I called her to get her home, then got the kids dressed, grabbed the dog and off we went.
Last night was brutal - at least one town to the southwest of us was devastated - it would have been MUCH worse, had the town been bigger. But we weren't even close to that particular storm yet. Just as we got to the cellar, I (like all good and proper men) stayed up top and watched it - it was the darkest most ominous storm I've seen in 20 years living here. I watched as the storm fed into two lowerings and dropped two tornadoes just south of town. Fortunately, they bounced right back up. Problem was, these storms were only moving about 15-20 mph, so it was a LONG storm. The sirens went off for this one, my wife makes it home - we both go down inside, the kids are crying and the dog is going nuts....20 minutes later, we come out.
Now, that was just the warmup at about 7:00. A bigger, much more powerful storm was SLOWLY making it's way toward us from the southwest. It was only about 30 miles away, but it frequently anchored itself to the ground (with tornados) and stopped moving predictably. So I left the wife and kids in the cellar, and watched the weather for about an hour - they couldn't seem to figure out what to do with this one....very scary! So, off I go, back to the cellar again. We spend another 30-40 minutes there this tie and come back out to watch even MORE weather.
BUT, the most powerful cell of the night was still behind this one and moving extremely slow, and about two counties away with it's bullseye right on Woodward. Very scary. I think it dropped at least 3 F4 tornados, the weather guys say possibly even an F5, and it hadn't weakened after 3 hours. In fact, it was just as strong as ever. It had hit Sweetwater early, and dropped numerous funnels in the farmlands.
After spending nearly 4 hours in or near the cellar, I bring the family inside and watch the weather around 10:30. A line of storms had developed in the Texas panhandle and were moving this way, but the supercell I was just talking about kept turning right, so we finally moved out of it's path - no more tornados for us last night. However, we continued to get HAMMERED with hail, wind and rain for the rest of the night. About about 4:00, I gave up and headed off to bed.
Jump to 7:30 this morning - I wake up and it's STILL raining, hailing and windy. The weather guys show a large storm over us again and are saying that we have as big of, if not bigger, chance of severe weather again today - only they think it's going to be across a much larger section of the state this time. Thing that worries me is that on Friday and Saturday, the weather in the morning was decent, a little windy, but not bad. Today, it's starting off crappy and it's only going to get worse, according to them. I don't know, but I'm pretty tired.
Forecast shows chances of severe weather today, tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Sounds like it's going to be a LONG week.....Don't get me wrong, we aren't the only ones getting hit - as of about 9:00 last night, they mentioned about 50 tornados hitting all up and down a line from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. A town in Kansas (Greensburg) was 90% destroyed on Friday night, then got hit again last night. I actually used to live close to Greensburg many years ago.
This is the largest outbreak of storms in this area that I remember in my 41 years. So, if you don't see me on much for the next few days, you pretty much know why now.