It's been raining and dreary for the past couple of days now. I picked the kids up from school yesterday and about 10 minutes after we got home, the weather radio went off for a Tornado Watch. Hannah begins her little freak out but calms down a little after I remind her of what a watch means. Mike calls to tell me that he's going to work out and then head home. That's fine. Just before 5pm, Jacob starts screaming that there's a Tornado Warning (we were watching the Weather Channel). A second later, the weather radio goes off again for the Warning. Ugh. We listen and find out that it's for NW Johnson County. Not for us. Okay. I still step outside to get a look...no sirens or anything...we should be okay. Jacob turns on Gary Lezak and he sees a cell heading out of Miami County (just to our south) and into Johnson County that will probably hit us. Great.
The weather radio goes off again. Another Tornado Warning for that cell entering Johnson County. I look at the kids and they've got their valuables (blankets, Nintendo DS games, Jacob's violin) and Jacob's seriously looking for the pets. That's when the sirens start. It really starts raining hard and, after looking at the radar, I'm not convinced it's quite basement time yet.
Mike calls to tell me that they closed the Fitness Center and he's heading home. I told him to hang out until the storm's passed...I'd give him a call. The radar shows that the storm is almost to us so, the kids and I head to the basement.
I'm still not sure about this tornado thing, so I head back upstairs to take another look. Sirens are still going off (they went off about 4-5 times) but everything looks to be east of us. Mike calls to ask if he can come home yet and I tell him that Gary says there's a possible tornado around 143rd and Nall, headed to where Mike works. He says that he'll wait for the all-clear and I tell the kids they can come back up.
Not five minutes later, the weather radio goes off again for another Tornado Warning. Hannah's crying at this point and I have to assure her that this one is also not for us. I call Mike to tell him it's okay for him to leave and we try to go on with our evening.
Ultimately, there were a couple of touchdowns but nothing in our immediate area. I completely forgot about the second tornado season. Hopefully, the rest of fall won't be this active. Now, we get ready for Ike, which won't be fun after the 5 inches we've had in the past couple of days.
2 comments:
I'm glad you are ok. We also had a tornado warning last night. It was about 10:45 pm so Jeff woke us up to go to the basement. It was our one and only warning. I much prefer the daytime ones.
Daytime warnings are absolutely much easier to deal with. It certainly seems like when we get one warning, we get several more within the hour. Otherwise, it's very much like Peoria weather during tornado season.
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