June 29, 2012

Five Words You Never Want To Hear...

...during the Summer in the Midwest: "Boy, the sky looks weird."

Click for apocalyptic size
This was what I saw when I went outside after a customer said the above five words.  A few minutes later the skies opened up like Noah had been building an ark down the street.  Fortunately, that was ALL that happened... I was expecting funnel clouds, a hail of frogs, a hail of hail, an Elder God to crawl up out of the ground, that sort of thing.

What you can't see in these pictures is the rolling at the forward edge.  Yeesh.  I nigh on wet myself with fear.  The Midwest: don't like the weather?  Just wait a few minutes, it'll change.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:13 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 125 words, total size 1 kb.

1 It rolled through fast, but it did enough damage to the fairgrounds at Wright-Patterson AFB that the Air Force Tattoo was cancelled. Wind speeds of 82 mph were recorded in the area.

Posted by: muon at June 30, 2012 02:57 AM (hQjNF)

2 I think what you saw is known as a "derecho"

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 30, 2012 01:47 PM (+rSRq)

3 That same storm caused power-fluctuations for me last night in Arlington VA, but luckily I got my electronic gear turned off quickly.  It was almost constant lightning for almost an hour, along with high winds and rain.

Posted by: Siergen at June 30, 2012 02:12 PM (PuIGa)

4 Does your bookstore have a basement?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 30, 2012 03:52 PM (+rSRq)

5 Steven, even better: half the store is actually underground, including the entire back room, where my desk is.  It's built into the side of a hill, y'see.  While the building we're in does have an official tornado evac site, which is essentially a basement area, it's on the far side of the building from us.  The evac route takes us past some awfully exposed windows.  In a short notice emergency, it's probably safer for us to hunker down in our back room. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 30, 2012 04:53 PM (C7o1W)

6
While the building we're in does have an official tornado evac site, which is essentially a basement area, it's on the far side of the building from us.
I sorta expected a sliding panel behind your desk that led to the secret underground Wonderduck super-villain lair.  Especially since you said that the building is built into the side of a hill...

Posted by: Siergen at July 01, 2012 10:29 AM (PuIGa)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Comments are disabled. Post is locked.
24kb generated in CPU 0.0184, elapsed 0.1637 seconds.
47 queries taking 0.1547 seconds, 282 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.