Thursday Night Storm

Thursday night we had a sudden storm hit.

It was very nice out early in the evening, not at all the sort of weather you'de expect a storm to arise from. It was sunny, and there was a gentle breeze. It was of course warm, but I found it not too warm to be unpleasent. I had retired for the evening and was in my room when I heard a sharp rap on my door. It was about 10:40 in the evening:

"Do you have a car here?" the question came. It was posed by my neighbor, an older gentleman who was in the possession of a NOAA certified weather radio. "I do," I replied. "Well, you'de better get it under cover. There's a big storm moving in, and it's about half an hour away. There's reports of golf-ball sized hail, and winds up to 125 miles an hour. And lots of dust and rain." He continued "There's still room under the canopy out front - maybe enough for one or two more cars."

Immediately I put on my boots and grabbed my keys. I could not let this warning pass! I had never actually seen golf-ball sized hail, but I have had the misfortune of being caught by high speed golf-ball sized apples. I didn't want to see what the effect of a similar volume of ice moving at a similar speed would be on my car. As I left my apartment I could see my neighbor moving down the hall, warning the others of the impending peril.

My car was in the back, so I didn't see exactly how much room remained in the front until I had pulled around there. There was another person in front of me, who looked at the remaining space and decided that there would be better shelter alsewhere. AsI drew closer, I saw that there were already three full sized vans and three minivans assembled under the cover of the solid canopy. The covered area was not square, and in consequence the space was not utilized as tightly as it could have been were the protected area more vehicle-shaped.

After a breif reconnoiter of the remaining space, I determined that I could fit between one the minivans and the fron entrance. This was actually more straight-forward then I initially thought, as the angle of the minivan made it easy to manouver around.

I had just gotten my car carefully parked when I saw the incoming wave: two, three, then FOUR other vehicles were pulling around to the front in an attempt to find shelter. It looked like it was going to be a very tight fit, and it was. However, with the amount of talent that was on hand in the form of driving ability (no, not mine) all three cars and a jeep were able to fit - without scraping - under the canopy.

Then the storm hit.

More accurately, the lightning hit. Lots and Lots of lightning,. We could see the front approaching - it was already dark, being about a quarter past eleven, by the sky grew ominous.More accurately, the sky became onimous, but that's beside the point. We watched the lightning move in from the west, and move generaly around us to the north- most of the lighting appeared to be the cloud-to-cloud type, but this did not diminish the ferousity of the bolts that did make it to earth.

I don't recall ever seeing tuch a great amount of lightning. There were frequent large blasts - there was one blast that turned the whole western sky green. Not an electrical arc type of green, but a bright, vivid, traffic light sort of green.

After about five minutes of watching the lighting move in, the rain arrived. It arrived in great sheets, driven forth by the wind. More accurately, the rain arrived in clouds as great masses of water vapor, which then congealed (ok, condensed) around dust particle whipped up by the wind, which probably did not reach 125 in our location. At any rate, there was a great quantity of rain, and it fell in varying degrees of force as the wind changed directions- first from the west, then from the north, then north-east, then west. It would have been a circular argument to say that the rain only came from one point of the compass.

There were three or four of us that waited out by the cars to watch the storm. It stayed predominately dry under the canopy, but we were bold enough to venture forth into the storm a few times, and I got positively soaked. I was completely wet except for part of my shirt that was covered by my Carhard(tm) brand coat. It was incredible.

We waited out there and watched until about 12:30. We did not go running Friday morning.