Smith Family Weblog

My Grandpa Dankleff pointed out clouds just like this to me when I was little, saying that they indicated an unstable atomsphere. He was right–it hailed moments later that day. Yesterday, though, we just ended up with a few sprinkles.

By late afternoon yesterday, temperatures had reached 85. By 6 pm or so, the sky to the north east started to darken and the National Weather Service issued a tornado watch. A couple of hours later, a storm developed to the southwest, though we didn’t hold much hope for rain–a large lake in that area usually causes even the most organized storm to split in two and go around our part of the city.

It quickly became apparent, though, that wasn’t the case this time. Here are a few photos I snapped around 8 p.m.

The storm passed without much fanfare, and we went to bed a bit later.

At 1 a.m., I awoke to a terrible storm–there was near constant lightening, roaring thunder and wind so strong I was afraid our open windows were going to break off. I’m sure my senses were heightened because of the midnight wake-up call, but it was really scary! We grabbed the girls and headed down to the basement. We turned on the TV to find that we were in a tornado warning–there was radar-indicated rotation in our area. We could hear the doors and windows rattling upstairs, and Bryan said the trees he saw on the way down looked like they were going to blow over.

It was all over within 45 minutes, and we didn’t lose a single tree (or window!). Two city residents claimed to have seen a tornado, but the trained spotters in the area did not. The National Weather Service said the storm produced straightline winds up to 80 miles an hour. Incredible!

I saw about seven or eight downed trees on the way into work, but all in all, the damage was surprisingly minimal.