This was one of the worst severe weather events I’ve had of living here in Southern Indiana. A day I do not want to go through again.
It started off cloudy. Alittle warm. Today’s high was going to be 74*F. There was an area of disturbed weather to the north of us. As time progressed, a line of thunderstorms formed in East-Central Illinois. Some of them were tornadic supercells, which of course worried me. The local news channel I watch, WHAS11, said it was just going to be a Damaging Wind and Large Hail event. Then why were these weak, small tornadoes forming?
The day went on and there was a tornado warning in west-southern Indiana. The SPC showed a sigh of reprieve as we were no longer under a SLGT risk. But we still had a 2% tornado threat. And this is when the sun came out and beated down on us for a good hour or two, destabilizing the atmosphere. It went from 74*F to 80*F in that time frame. Plenty of fuel for thunderstorms.
This cluster of storms demonstrated the saying “in and close to the watch area”. With a Severe Thunderstorm Watch to the north of us, and these storms were just south, creeping east towards us.
Watching it on the news, the tornado warning for one county expired. Then about 5 minutes later the northern edge near Paoli started rotating again. Tornado Warning #2. It too weakened. Then they showed an area that looked like was making a B-line for my house started showing signs of rotation.
It was then I was forced to turn off my TV due to how much fear was in my body. My heartbeat was going crazy. I kept thinking ‘This is going to be the one that hits us.’ Attempted to calm myself down by saying “These are just weak tornadoes with brief touchdowns. Even if you get one hitting the house it won’t cause damage.”
Time ticked on and the sky began to get dark, to the point day became night. All you saw was this enormous black and grey cloud that went on for miles.
I stayed in my bed to remain calm as much as I could, but was ready to run for my prepared closet the just incase I heard a siren outside. It started as light rain, then increased to heavy rain and wind. I was also holding onto my cell phone incase it sent me a txt message from a service I signed up to, to send me weather alerts that only alert me if my house is under attack, instead of the whole county. It’s called SAF-T-Net.
As the rain got harder, I finally got that dreaded txt message, and saw we were not under a Tornado Warning, but a Severe Thunderstorm Warning until 9PM EDT. Was due to the line bowing out.
I got up from my bed and looked out the window where I noticed the clouds were getting dark, and noticed it was getting very bright. It was almost over!! So I knew I had made a jackass of myself worrying over this damn thing.
But seriously, this thing could had been alot worse. Thankfully it was going through its weakening phase (I learned later it tried to drop a tornado in New Albany).
.
This storm is pretty much my fear of tornadoes in a nutshell. Thinking you’re just getting a severe thunderstorm (wind, hail, and rain I can handle), then suddenly it chooses to rotate and head toward my neighborhood with little to no warning.
I just hope I’m going to be able to sleep tonight. My nerves still feel like they’re in alert mode even though the storms have passed about 5 hours ago, and the severe risk has ended. What pissed me off is after it passed it finally chooses to weaken and die off! D: WHY COULDN’T IT DO THAT BEFORE IT GOT HERE?!?! Then it wouldn’t had scared me shitless.
On top of it, I don’t even know why we got this severe weather. It didn’t cool us down. Infact we’re going to warm up to near 90*F by Sunday, and it will stay most of next week.
The heat is on. Too fucking early too. We will get temps that is normally seen in JULY. We will be hotter than Phoenix. What the fuck is going on with these temps this year?
Fortunately I installed my Air Conditioner in my window a week ago. So I’m good to go.