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The way the wind blows
Jul. 8th, 2009 12:05 amWe just had a tornado-generating thunderstorm pass through here. Now that it's passed, I'll write.
My first instinct in a severe thunderstorm is to run to the basement to see if it has flooded. I could hear a bit of water coming up into the sump, probably from the overtaxed street storm drains, but just a trickle--it didn't reach the level of the basement floor. While I was examining that, I heard the hail, and went upstairs to look out into the street (also a useful gauge of whether the basement will flood). The weather service called it "nickel-sized hail", and that seems just right. From the entryway to the house, I did feel the (literally) terrible winds, though I didn't at that point have the thought "tornado" in my head or I might well have run back to the basement in panic. (I grew up in tornado country--central Ohio--and they're not uncommon in central North Carolina, either, so I have a lifelong overreaction to them.)
As the storm abated, I checked online weather sources, because, after all, you need a weatherman to know. But it was all over in about fifteen minutes from first drops to last gust--nothing but light clouds west of us now, and even that should be passed in another fifteen minutes or so. The storm is socking New Rochelle now, and will be over the Sound a few minutes after that, and then rake Long Island and then the sea again.
And so to bed.
My first instinct in a severe thunderstorm is to run to the basement to see if it has flooded. I could hear a bit of water coming up into the sump, probably from the overtaxed street storm drains, but just a trickle--it didn't reach the level of the basement floor. While I was examining that, I heard the hail, and went upstairs to look out into the street (also a useful gauge of whether the basement will flood). The weather service called it "nickel-sized hail", and that seems just right. From the entryway to the house, I did feel the (literally) terrible winds, though I didn't at that point have the thought "tornado" in my head or I might well have run back to the basement in panic. (I grew up in tornado country--central Ohio--and they're not uncommon in central North Carolina, either, so I have a lifelong overreaction to them.)
As the storm abated, I checked online weather sources, because, after all, you need a weatherman to know. But it was all over in about fifteen minutes from first drops to last gust--nothing but light clouds west of us now, and even that should be passed in another fifteen minutes or so. The storm is socking New Rochelle now, and will be over the Sound a few minutes after that, and then rake Long Island and then the sea again.
And so to bed.
