Yesterday and last night was pretty wild here in middle Tennessee. We had a number of systems come through. How many? I have no idea! It just seemed like a continuous bout of storms. We had multiple thunderstorms during the day, but the fun came after sunset. I was watching the hazardous weather approach on radar, and listening to a weather net on the local 2 meter repeater. As the mass of storms came, there was almost continuous lightning, it was quite impressive. Then the weather radio squawked again, warning of an approaching tornado, and then my cellphone and my stepson's cellphone activated with a tornado warning message.
We quickly retreated to the basement with our dogs and waited. I had already pre-staged leashes, my bugout bag, a raincoat, and a lantern. We had to exit the house to go down in the basement. The thunder was horrendous, and the rain was truly a deluge. The dogs behaved well under unusual circumstances. After about 45 minutes, that particular system finally passed through. In about an hours time we got over 6 inches of rain. My rain gauge only goes up to six inches, and it was overflowing. We were fortunate. We never lost power, though many in the area did. Amazingly, this wasn't the end of the storms. More storms formed within an hour, and we had thunder and lightning until dawn. Tornadoes suck when they occur at night...
Today, we have blue sky, cooler temperatures and a brisk breeze. There's no question that some sort of a storm shelter is a necessity here, whether a basement or a formal shelter. I believe this is the fourth or fifth time we've had to seek shelter over the past five years. It adds a little spice to life and makes you appreciate the fair weather days. As far as damage, my driveway was washed out a bit, but the damage was relatively minor. All in all, it was an interesting day and night! I'm sure I'll sleep better tonight!
