Survival

Ahh, June 1. Today, we have a sunny, clear sky, with a nice, cool breeze out of the north.



This was NOT the case yesterday. Yesterday was yet another horrid day of storms in central Oklahoma. It was a deadly tornado, this morning 9 were reported dead from last night's storms. Many teams were out chasing, and several got dangerously close to a multiple-vortex tornado. The Weather Channel's chase vehicle got thrown 200 feet, but the team members survived. "Training" storms just poured rain over the OKC Metro area, causing horrid flooding, I mean FEET.

I was fighting allergies all day yesterday - bad enough I was miserable. I knew storms should be building by late afternoon. I had filled the clothesline, had some dinner (that's noon for us), then I went and laid down for a nap to get some relief from the junk in my head.

I woke up later, and peeked out our north window, I saw blue sky and a few puffy, white clouds. Didn't look too bad. I no sooner got laid back down, than Hubby came in, telling me to get up, there was rotation 2 miles south of us. OUT OF BED I LEAPT, remembering I had a clothesline full of clothes! The adrenalin started pumping and out the door Younger Son and I went to bring in all the laundry.



It was spooky - it was very still, with dark clouds to the south, and sharp thunder would come from that direction every little bit. It seemed the faster we needed to go, the more we slowed down and fumbled with the clothespins. Even so, I think that's the FASTEST I've ever gotten laundry off the line! I was a nervous wreck, because I was seeing THIS to the south:





That litle pointy area was changing moment by moment! Got the laundry in, and Hubby and I took off to get to a better vantage point east of town to monitor these clouds. This is how the eastern sky looked as we were about to leave the house:



We got to the east side of town,coming through some sprinkles on the way - and there was even a small hailstone or a few here and there in town at this time. Suddenly, Hubby said, "WHOAAA!!!!" and pointed to the sotheast ---- THIS was coming up from the ground:



... building up more ...



... and more ...



... I think we have a tornado ...



... it didn't get any more distinct than this, but it was something, anyway.



The clouds continued to build to the east - very firm-looking structure.



Lots of turbulent clouds. Check out the hook-shape there in the clouds ...



Then as the clouds moved farther, we moved out to the northeast of town. Here is looking east-northeast from there, and here comes Older Son and a friend-of-his-who-is-as-much-of-a-weather-nut-as-we-are, meeting us at our rendezvous. (Friend said Older Son pulled up in front of his house and hollered, "GET IN!" ... and off they went. haha)



The clouds looked very ominous, that one area close to the ground, I thought looked like a "claw."





Looking northeast - storm clouds, river valley, wheat field.



Looking southeast - storm clouds, buttes, wheat field.



Turbulent clouds building overhead.



Clear sky to the west, at one point later, we felt the breeze change and the air was NOTICEABLY drier.



Listening to weather radio on Older Son's phone - like our phone holder?



Dark turbulent clouds overhead.



Older Son watching the storms.



Then everything was moving far enough east there wasn't much different to see. We went back to town, yakked with a patrolman, we were all on a radio station that was reporting a BAD TORNADO about 30-40 miles to the east ... so then I said, "I wanna go home and see stuff on TV!" So off we went to the house. Came in, plunked camera and stuff down, demanded Younger Son to get off the computer, turned the TV on ... and this is what we saw (TV pic of the bad tornado east of us):



I no sooner got that picture of the TV taken, than ... the power went off. It was off about an hour, then came back on. Then it went off again about an hour later, and was off 30-40 minutes, then came back on. Meanwhile: the little weather radio came in to play.



Got a few more pictures of the storm clouds towards sunset, tornadic activity and bad rain-wind-hail was pummeling the City, some places AGAIN where the previous bad tornado had hit on May 20. This time, they were saying "get underground," and so many who didn't have any underground were leaving, causing the interstates and such to be clogged with traffic jams. It was a bad deal. Plus the horrible flooding.

Backside of storm clouds, looking south from our yard.



Looking at storm clouds in the east, they kept building up in one spot and heading towards the City. The sunset is giving them an "eerie" color.



Backside of storm clouds, looking north.



Please pray for Oklahoma, we have been terribly scoured by these storms recently. People have died. Property has been destroyed. But thankful for those who are safe. May God watch over us all, Oklahoma and everywhere.