Rain and Severe Weather: How I Know With Out a Weatherman

It was an awareness thing. I was sitting there, oblivious to what was occurring outside, when I became aware that the light coming in from the window had drastically diminished. I didn't have a light on in the room that I was in, because it was bright and sunny outside and I didn't need a light.

The weather, outside, had been hotter than blazes all morning. I knew that, because I had driven to town to get tickets for someone and my cars temperature gauge told me that the outside temperature was close to ninety degrees. As I passed by banks, their temperature notification said 93 degrees. It was hot. Oddly, it was a dry heat, arid almost. Odd for here, since we usually get humid summers.

Our house is fairly quiet, being well insulated and the air conditioner was making a lot of white noise that dulled out my ears to any wind that was coming up outside. That's why it was somewhat alarming to have my room getting darker and darker.

The wind was picking up outside. I could tell that there was something coming weather wise because the leaves on the oak trees near the end of my 500 foot driveway were flipping over.

Yes. The tree looked different. Not so green. More of a dull gray. That's because the leaves were flipping over. They do that when there is a possible storm.

I made the dogs come in before when I came home because I didn't like how hot it was out there and I wanted them to come in so I didn't have to worry about them if there was a lot of wind.

The one dog had a toy that he kept pestering me with. He's a little sensitive to storms and they seem to crank up his temperament for acting like a wild creature. He's also the one that will snuggle with you if you sit down and will practically become a lap dog.

Today he had no intention of being a lap dog. He brought me the toy and was whining at me in a loud voice to play with him. It was more annoying than anything else because I was in the basement and trying to hear what was happening outside.

This time I had grabbed my camera and was taking pictures outside of things that I was noticing. The color. The leaves whipping around from the sudden wind. The color of the leaves. I noticed that there was dust blowing down the road and I noticed a weird bunch of dust being pushed along across a field.

I headed back to the basement.

On my way downstairs, I grabbed a sweatshirt with a hood, a flashlight and I still had my camera hanging around my neck.

I plugged my weather radio in and turned the tuner to the weather alert broadcasts. The voice intoned that there was a severe weather warning for my county. It was two o'clock now and the alert was until four o'clock. Then, he changed the alert to a watch until nine p.m.

As I walk around the yard, now that the storm has passed, I was disturbed by how many branches were now strewn across my yard. Millions of little branches. I had just mowed the lawn and it looked almost manicured.

Now it looks like I had some sort of wild party. Instead of beer cans laying all over, there are leaves everywhere.

I did have some damage to the grass in the ditch. I had noticed some strong winds gusting and the grass was smashed flat in a few spots where the windy stuff had pressed harder into the ditch. I think it was a small tornado. We did get credit for sixty miles and hour straight winds.

There was a picnic table and a bench style swinging chair on a trailer waiting to be set up for campfire use. Well. The swinging bench was knocked off the trailer and boards were broken off. It will have to be repaired before anyone can sit on it.