Summer Storms

Yesterday I got home from work and went outside to do a little yard work. First I picked up dog doo (I have to do this frequently because Nora eats a lot). Then I moved a pile of tree branches and sticks from the patio (unsightly) to a spot next to the shed. These pieces of wood are being saved to use in our little fire pit...unfortunately we only start a fire a few times a year, and the sticks are never used up. I am re-claiming my patio for use as a patio. I shall sit on a chair on the patio and read a book, or suntan, or both.

As I was cleaning, the skies began to darken. I knew storms were suppose to come later in the evening, so the clouds did not surprise me. I played ball with the dogs to get the energy out before we were cooped up in the house due to storms. When we were finished, we came back in for dinner. I sat down and turned on the TV. The local channels were all on "Continuous Weather Coverage" because there were many storms traveling across the state. We even had a few tornado warning already in place.

While I was watching, a storm spotter in El Dorado (20 minutes North East of us) called in with a tornado sighting. Apparently the storm spotters were having to call in because the Radar system was down at the news station. We were having to use Topeka and Dodge City Radars to see all the weather. Over the next 5 minutes 2 funnel clouds were spotted in El Dorado. I called Michael to make sure that he was watching the weather. He was not watching the weather (he is out of town on business this week).

The next weather highlight was a set of storms moving in from the west toward the general Wichita area. When they were about an hour out of town, we started getting reports of 80+ mile an hour wind gusts in Hutch with blinding rain and golf ball sized hail. So I went out to the deck and gathered all of my tomato plants and brought them inside. I didn't want them to blow off of the deck. I also went around to make sure all of the tools were out of the yard and that everything was anchored down as much as possible.

So this was a lot of build up for these storms. I think I watched that "Continual Coverage" for about 3 hours preparing for the storms. Apparently I didn't really need to worry about it. The big winds storm went north of us by about 20 miles. The heavy rain and hail came up through Wichita from the South and headed out of town without giving us more than a nice little rain shower. Most people would say that we were lucky everything completely missed us. I think it was a lot of build up for nothing. I didn't even get a cool storm out of it. What a let down! Plus I had to move my tomatoes back out this morning and water them.