Thursday, July 9, 2020

Thunderstorm In The Summer Can Mean Tornadoes

It's hot and sticky and it's only 5:30 am! We had thunderstorms throughout the night and are looking at rain through today. DH isn't happy because he wanted to continue working on the woodshed. But - Mother Nature won't be denied.



I love thunderstorms. I love watching the lightning. I'm not as fond
of tornadoes, although they are fascinating to watch if you can
see them through the rain. 



Thunderstorms like this are inevitable when we have high. hot temperatures and unstable air masses. Thunderstorms can pop up very unexpectedly. Sometimes they are small, area wide soakings of rain, then gone. Other times they take over a vast territory and bring rumbles, lightning, and sometimes tornadoes along with them. 





Much of the time, since tornadoes are formed from thunderstorm cells, the
rain is so hard that you can't see the tornado with this clarity. I still
remember driving down to New Mexico one summer and crossing a wide
open patch of land in Nebraska/Texas. I saw one tornado on my
right and two on my left in the wide open spades. A bit spooky, trying
to thread that needle. 




We do live in a state that gets tornadoes - most of the USA gets them. Those who don't get tornadoes sometimes get hurricanes. I'm not really sure which is worse ... oh yes I do. Hurricanes are worse - they hit broad swaths of territory and usually move through slowly, so their destruction can flatten and affect large portions of a state (or states). Tornadoes are skip-hop, usually relatively small, and although horribly destructive, are rarely affecting wide and long areas of land or cities. Of course there are exceptions - because we're talking nature here. Nature writes her own rules, and they are always changing.




Tornadoes are beautiful destruction. This one was photographed in
Illinois, and the lighting was just perfect. 






I've lived in states with tornadoes for my entire life, and I'm used to them. I have always been more on the fringes, not in the central USA which really can get slammed. But Minnesota has tornadoes every spring/summer and some of them are quite deadly. There were some tornadoes popping north of us last night, and I just hope that they touched down in places where they didn't harm people. 





This third tornado was photographed in our next door state to the east -
Wisconsin. You can see the wet road here. This photo captured the rain
along with the twister. 





What kind of destructive weather do you have in your area of the world? Whatever you have, I hope that you have a wonderful day and I certainly intend to be back tomorrow. Stay well, be kind. 




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