Storms

We have had some severe storms going through.  Lots of tornado warnings, etc.  Nothing more than some hail and light wind damage here, but there were EF4 and EF5 tornadoes just south and north of here.  It breaks my heart to see the photos of destruction up in Joplin, MO.

I was 14 when my town was hit by an F4 and I still remember clearly the destruction and devastating things we saw...but our storm was nothing like this.  Only 4 lost their lives in Cincinnati--in Joplin the count is well over 100 dead.  And since I was just 14, I wasn't as heavily impacted by the stresses that we face as heads of family to protect and provide for our children.  I heard of a woman who was holding a son the same age as mine and he was ripped out of her arms when the tornado came through.  Absolutely devastating.

We did take some time to prepare, freshened up some 72 hour kits and figured out the safest place in our home was unfortunately under our kitchen table.

We saw some serious rotation in the clouds outside (yes, I stood outside barefoot in the middle of the street with with the cold inflow rushing towards the storm north of here....genius)


Tornado warning, around 7PM on 5/22.  I have never seen rotation like this before.  I love watching storms and following weather...I was geekin' out.

This one below was taken during one storm that had no real severe threat to us but severe threat to the east of us.  The clouds formed overhead and were absolutely black.  This was taken during the daytime.  You can see the light off in the distance to the north, and you can tell how dark is is from the glow of the lights in the house across the way.  It was incredible.

 

We also got deluged with rain, which caused some flash flooding problems again.  These were shots I took between Centerton and Rogers, AR