The other day, a tornado watch was issued for my county.   I was watching very carefully.

I had never experienced a tornado watch before as we had an unusually uneventful year for tornadoes due to the desert-like dome of heat that nearly fried us in June and July.  There was a tornado watch, then a tornado warning and then a tornado in my county shortly after I moved to Tennessee in April, but I was up in Kentucky visiting my grandparents when it happened.   So that didn’t really count, except for the fact that my little furballs WERE in my apartment when the tornado touched down across town and I was fretting over it as I watched the events unfold on TV from 120 miles away.

My cats were fine.

Anyway, I was at work when the tornado watch was issued the other day, late in the afternoon.  Thank goodness, because I needed to talk about it.  All of my colleagues had experienced these things before, having lived in the South for many years, so they were talking me through the signs of an imminent tornado:

• The wind and/or rain stops suddenly and everything is still
• There is intense hail
• The sky turns an unappetizing gray/green color
• Storm sirens go off
• It sounds like a freight train is approaching

The weather really carried on for a while with droves of rain, strong gusts of wind and thunder and lighting.  Thankfully, it let up just as I was leaving the office.

With the watch still in effect when I got home, I pulled out my camera to document the conditions.

Remind me to buy a helmet.  Apparently, that is one thing you really need in a tornado because you never know what could fly at your head.

The only thing noteworthy that happened with the tornado watch was a pretty cool sunset/cloud display in very lovely shades of orange and pink.

We had some very poufy, stagnant clouds and others that were very flat and low and moved at a brisk pace.  I don’t know what this means, but I’m sure it has some climatic significance.

How could anything bad come of this?

Fizzling out…

BAM!

I told you I was watching this thing closely.

The tornado watch was originally in effect until 10:00PM, but they ended up lifting it early, around 8:30PM, because the stabilized conditions stole the storm’s thunder. 

Hardee-har-har.

Humor is the only thing that will get you through times like this.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump