TORNADO WARNINGS!! WIND, RAIN & HAIL….ANOTHER CLOSE CALL!!

TOOK THIS PHOTO MOMENTS BEFORE BEING CAUGHT IN A RAIN SQUALL
Figured I would try working on changing-up my morning routine a bit and see if I could get myself onto another track other than my hours long repetitive computer routine each and every morning. It is no easy feat to break with the long standing morning blog reading habit that I have had for the past 5 years but feel it is time to attempt a few changes.

The weatherman on Tuesday called for severe weather in our area Wednesday but other than some moderate rain and wind in the morning all was quiet.  Instead of a predicted cold front arriving the weather turned in the opposite direction & became hot & humid. (I wrote that paragraph earlier in the day)

Never made it up to Goderich this morning and instead, Kelly, myself and the Pheebs headed off to visit my Uncle Harry at the Care Facility in Mitchell, Ontario.  We have not put the cone back on the Pheebster so we took her along to keep an eye on her.  Uncle Harry seemed a bit better than the last couple of times we saw him and he was happy to see Pheebe again.

On the way home we heard there was a 'Tornado Watch' out for our area.  That didn't surprise me because of how the humidity had quickly built up during the day and the fact there was a mass of colder air up in Northwest Ontario moving our way.  With all the trees around our place we have no view of the sky so we kept a close eye on our computer's 'real time' radar site monitoring any storm cells heading our way across Lake Huron.   I wonder how many area people remember we have the DOUGLAS POINT NUCLEAR POWER GENERATING STATION  just a short 50 something miles straight north of us sitting right on the shores of Lake Huron.  I wonder what a direct hit on that facility by a tornado would do……………hmmmm, not good!!
Our weather trouble quickly became serious around 6 o’clock tonight when the sky’s darkened & thunder rolled in.  Weather map showed storm cells out over the lake quickly heading our way.  Jumped in the Jeep and headed for a vantage point on the cliffs above the lake in Bayfield hoping for some spectacular storm clouds approaching.   But,  aside from one photo before the sky's darkened, the clouds quickly turned a dark gray and I was caught in a rain squall.  Only time I have ever got my cameras wet and I was only about a hundred yards from the Jeep.  By the time I got back home about 5 minutes later the rain was pretty heavy.  Kelly was monitoring the television weather channel and on our screen the Tornado ‘watch had gone to a ‘warning’ and we could see heavy storm cells moving in all around us.  I zipped outside and moved my Motorcycle over, grabbed a hold of the utility trailer and pulled it out into the driveway.   Quickly drove the Jeep into the carport.  I was worried about hail!! 

THESE WERE THE WARNING BANNERS BEING FLASHED AT THE BOTTOM OF OUR TV SCREEN
The only place we have to go in case of an emergency is the basement of our Park’s clubhouse just up the street but we elected to sit tight.  News flashes were coming in fast to the weather channel with a funnel cloud spotted about 20 miles north of us.  Goderich looked like it could be in trouble again.  People in Sarnia/Port Huron were being warned to get inside!!  Right now at 7:41 p.m. hail has just started but checking the ‘real time’ weather site I see this cell should just about be passed us.  Kelly said we just lost the internet but amazingly, we have not lost our power.  7:45 & the light hail shower has stopped and sky’s have brightened.  Checking weather map again I see we are in the clear unless another storm cell comes in off the lake.  Internet is OK again but we just heard all the power is out in Bayfield.  Sky has turned a scary yellow but weather site is not showing any more storm cells near us.

Whewwwwww, that was a close one……………but, it was an exciting close one.  We’ll monitor the local news now & see if indeed there were any tornados on the ground or any damage done anywhere.  The towns of Clinton, Seaforth, Mitchell & the city of Stratford are now in the storm’s path as I type this.

9 P.M.  Figured with a yellow sky there might be a nice sunset so zipped back into Bayfield for some more photos.  I will have a few of those for Thursday night’s post.
 
THE LAST PARAGRAPH:  I am one of those people who likes storms and always find them exciting.  I used to love going out years ago in the old 35mm days and try to photograph lightning.  If I ever get any of my thousands of slides into a digital format I will have to dig out a few of my lightning pics.    But then again, I like most things that are different…..except computer software & program changes of course.  We are still struggling with our email address books and for any of the folks on my ‘Jokes Folks’ list that haven’t received any ‘Jokes’ lately, that is why……………………..

JUST MADE IT IN TIME FOR A FEW SUNSET PICS  WHICH I WILL INCLUDE IN THURSDAY’S POST
GROANER’S CORNER:
OLD HIKERS never die, they just trail away
OLD HIPPIES never die, they just smell that way
OLD HOCKEY PLAYERS never die, they just achieve their final goal
OLD HUNTERS never die, they just stay LOADED
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