Wednesday, March 22, 2017

California TORNADO!!

Okay, who tilted the earth causing all this nonsense we are experiencing in California??  We went from drought with forecasts of El Nino rains that never happened, to it raining so hard we got more rain than ever before in the history of California.  That wasn't a problem for me because I was in Arizona most of the time.

Next thing I know the dams are overflowing and ready to break, flooding two small towns East of me.  When I finally returned home, it was sunny and in the 80's ... downright HOT!

Yesterday as I was sitting on the couch minding my own business, an alert came over my phone.  Tornado warning in the town 45 minutes North of me.  That's CRAZY!!  NO WAY!!  We don't HAVE tornados in California!!  I checked my weather app.  There were big red triangles everywhere.

Next thing I know, I get another TORNADO WARNING for MY LITTLE TOWN!!  You've got to be kidding!!  I looked out the back door as the thunder rolled on for over a minute before the rain came down in sheets.  This was a little scary looking.  You don't SEE this stuff in California!  I mean look ... there's blue sky!
Of course I grabbed my camera and ran out into the rain to take some pictures.  It looked like I could reach up and touch the clouds they were so close to the ground.  I checked my phone several times looking for the telltale swirling.  The alarm went off again  WARNING, WARNING, DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!    The winds began to pick up ferociously. 
Then there was silence.  That was a little unsettling!  Pretty soon it began again with a vengeance.  It never did swirl or hit the ground as far as I know.  Unlike Florida's hurricanes where they know way in advance, or tornados in Kansas where you have lots of warning, there was about 5 minutes warning here.  California isn't set for for THIS kind of weather!!  After an inch of rain fell in about 30 minutes, the clouds disappeared and the sky turned blue.  Wow .... just WOW!!
Here's a couple of images I think I forgot to show you.  It looks like there's a fire in the distance, but it's just the sun setting in Quartzsite.
This one from Indio looked like we were in a big giant's mouth, just before going down the hatch.  Remember, photographers see things differently!!
Last night was Magic Kingdom night, which of course didn't really go well, but that's not news since something seems to happen every time.  It's too long a story to add to tornado weather ... I'll tell you about it tomorrow!!

Today I'm going to the store for Instant Pot materials!!  I'm on a roll with this new appliance!!





4 comments:

  1. Living in Arkansas for nearly 23 years, I lived through that weather over and over and over...but in all my years in Sacramento (30+ years) never seen or heard it, until a tornado hit just outside of Sacramento about 15-20 years ago. Oh my, the world is upside down after all...

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    1. It's just weird. Seems to me the weather was stable and predictable for all my life. Now it's topsy turvy!!

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  2. We are lucky that most tornadoes go north or south of us. We start watching the weather reports when the sky turns yellow-green. When our windows faced west we would just watch them come, then detour around our suburb. Our new place faces east so I don't know what we'll do here.

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    1. For us Californians, it's really different to have weather like this. I've never seen such cloud formations. I doubt a tornado would ever be as big as back East, but it's a little unnerving, none the less.

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