Early in the month, we had a squall line bring such strong winds, it snapped one of our fence posts. The two connecting panels dangled and our neighbor on the other side propped it up until Walter could fix it. Since we were so busy that month, Walter decided not to replace the post, but rather build splint braces for it instead. It was strong and did the job.
The next week, I had been watching the radar at work. A large band of severe thunderstorms was passing through the area ahead of a cold front. I didn't think much of it, other than what the view must be like from Walter's new office. We emailed a bit and he sent me a photo of his view. But when we arrived home, we were surprised to see a lot of storm damage from our back window.
The storm snapped another one of our fence posts in half like a toothpick and a large section of fence and the still attached post were on the ground. One odd thing we noted was the direction the panels had come to rest was opposite the wind direction. The neighbor we share that fence with actually had several other sections down on the other sides of their property too. But the strangest thing was the fact that they had TWO trampolines in their yard. Theirs was a very large one and it was balanced upside-down on the middle of the other fence. The other trampoline was average sized, but belonged to a neighbor three doors down!
Although Walter's mom only had patio furnature re-arranged, her house had no damage. But the neighbors all around her had serious and significant damages. Across the street from her, the two houses had their fence completely torn down and shred to bits. The house behind her had a trampoline land in their yard which smashed their wooden swingset to a pile of splinters.
The next day, we found out that it was actually a confirmed F0 tornado that hit our neighborhood and was captured by the news and local residents. A guy that lives on the next street was telling us he actually saw it and ran inside.
And then the next week, we had even more severe weather. I checked the radar that evening before Chloe and I went to Girl Scouts. All the storm cells in the area were to our west and headed mostly to the north. Half way through our meeting, I received a text message from a coworker who lives up in that direction that said he was watching a tornado form right over his house! I said, "Get inside, fool!" Just a few minutes later, the power went out at our meeting. I let the girls play freely for a minute while I check the radar again at our location. Nothing significant in our area, but there was a confirmed tornado in Saginaw close to where my coworker was texting from.
On the way home, I was thinking about some other friends, the Hambys, who live up that way and called to make sure they were camping out in their safe room. Her 5 year old said, "Mommy, why is God throwing ice cubes at us?"
As I drove, I noticed the dark cloud looming near the area of my house and called Walter to see if it was raining. He said no, it was hailing like mad! As I got closer and drove up on the highway interchange, the clouds grew more omenous. I was worried about the possibility of driving through large hail and hoped I could get in the garage with minimal damage. Chloe obliviously chattered in the back seat. There was no rain or hail, but as I exited the highway, I drove up the hill and noticed the black cloud right in front of me starting to swirl and dip down. Right in front of me! I shushed Chloe as I was now on high alert and the hair on my neck stood up. I expedited down the street and into our neighborhood. As I drove down our street, I noticed piles of quarter-sized hail that covered everyone's grass. Everyone was outside their homes. What had happened here? I parked in the garage and Chloe was pretty freaked out. Tornado sirens were still going off in the distance.
It turns out, nothing more than sirens and giant hail had hit the neighborhood this time. But the large swirling black clouds were still enough to concern everyone. We stood outside for a long while watching fingers extend from the cloud base and get sucked back up. It was scary and exciting at the same time. We were sure we would witness the birth of a tornado on our street.
That was one of the fastest growing supercells I've ever seen. It really blossomed from nothing to a category 5 storm before passing over us. It ended up joining with another cell and moved eastward toward Arlington and Dallas. It stopped the Rangers baseball game as the stadium was evacuated and spectators were quickly ushered to covered areas and tunnels. The Hambys said their windshield was busted up and she later posted photos of hail larger than golf balls.
That night, 10 tornadoes were confirmed in the city.
Since then, the weather has been pretty dry and HOT! This week, as I left work, the temperature was over a hundred degrees. The asphalt in the parking lot gets sticky and the heels on my shoes sink in to it. No chance for rain in the near future now.
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