celticdragonfly

I went out this afternoon to let the kids play outside a bit, around 520 ish, and whoa, the sky did NOT look a good color. Sure enough, not 20 minutes later weatherbug started going off with the severe thunderstorm watch, then warnings, and tornado watches.

selenite got home before it got bad. There's been a whole series of them, different cells turning into storms in different parts of town, I think we've been following the development of 4 or 5 of them through Weatherbug. It's been making me nervous enough that I haven't eaten dinner.

We stepped out front at one point, before it started raining here, and I really did not like the look of the sky. We've been keeping an ear out for the Weatherbug cheeps, and getting right to the computer to check each one. The best we have for a tornado shelter is the laundry room. I had

selenite stock the diaper bag and put it in there, bring me in the didymos sling from the van, and put some padding in there, a couple of sleeping bags. We did that as a just in case, and continued with what we'd been doing.

Then the Weatherbug cheeped, and

selenite was at the computer starting to read tornado warning, and we started hearing something weird we'd never heard before - our best guess is that it was a Saginaw tornado siren. He didn't stay to read the details on the warning at that point. I grabbed Jamie and the sling, he grabbed Maggie, and we hustled in there, with me screaming at Brendan to get OUT of the bathroom NOW and in here with us.

We got Jamie into the sling, the sleeping bags spread out, and sat down.

selenite is the man you want on your lifeboat, I tell you that - I was a nervous wreck, he calmly started telling the kids fairy tales. Okay, I was even being calmed, until he got to the part about the big bad wolf huffing and puffing to blow down the brick house. We lost power briefly three times, but each time it came back up quick enough that

selenite didn't get up to dig out the emergency light. I could hear hail hitting the house pretty powerfully.

After a couple of stories and a diaper change, it was getting quieter outside, and

selenite ventured out to check the weather. It looked like the worst had passed us, and although it's still storming, it's much calmer, so we've come back out for now. There's another storm coming up that may hit us on it's way through, we'll have to see. Nobody's going to bed anytime soon, that's for sure.

selenite's doing a window check for hail damage right now, I don't think he'll find anything, but better he be sure.

Looking through the Weatherbug alerts we missed, there was one near enough to here that yeah, that probably was the Saginaw siren going off. There was also a report in Richland Hills, which might have been the same one as close to here, and another in southern Arlington. We will be watching carefully. We are still seeing a LOT of very bright lightning, mostly to the east of us at this point.

Memo: I WANT a battery powered weather radio, and I want it now.

selenite was looking for batteries for the radio we have now, and not finding enough. We haven't been able to find a good FM station for weather around here anyway, I'm thinking I want one of the NOAA radios.

selenite has just returned from window patrol. No breakage, but apparently there was some bending - our bedroom windows let water in. Eeek.