Tornado Time

Tornado Time

Photo from NPR

To live in Texas in April or May, you get to be very aware of tornadoes. They come about as the weather changes from cold to hot, usually lovely Spring like weather that is crisp and clear to the muggy humid hot stuff we will get throughout most of the Summer. And where the systems meet that's where the tornado forms.

They usually come in the afternoon or evening times as the heat of the day builds and seem to come out of nowhere. You can have a blue sky and clouds will form and will darken and it will turn very dark . The wind will start to blow very hard and before you know it you have a swirling, whirling tornado that can do tremendous damage to anything in it's path.

For years sirens would sound in the towns to let you know to take cover but these days we find our best communication is by television as the weather channels have a good sense by looking at the radar,just what is heading which way. They do a great job and will often stay on for hours following the storm path. We also at our house have an emergency telephone call system that will alert us to any imminent danger in our immediate area.

You are told to stay away from windows and get into your safe room which should be somewhere on the lowest part of the house, (not many basements here,) or in a bathroom or closet in the interior of the house.

Fortunately we have yet to have been anywhere near a tornado. That might be because we are in a fairly sheltered area of undulating land and tornadoes seem to favor mostly flat lands.

We have had some very bad storms though. These come through at the same time as tornadoes and bring heavy downpours , violent winds ,lightening and thunder. They also bring hail sometimes the size of baseballs. That has happened to us twice and resulted in 2 new roofs and a very damaged garden and house paint. We considered ourselves lucky. No one was hurt and it could have been far worse.It sounded terrible!

Look at the photos of the Oklahoma tornado this week and you will see what I mean. We pray for all those people that had to experience that tornado and wish for a speedy recovery time.