How's the Weather?
Everyone here has been on edge about the weather--except perhaps those who are too disconnected from agriculture to care, or those who are too cavalier about their own safety or that of their property. The wheat is very nearly ripe, and it's grown well, although the drowned out spots from heavy rains earlier this spring show up now as bare spots. With the "right" kind of weather (hot and dry), harvest would probably kick in before the end of the week.
But, although we've got some temperatures in the upper 90's forecast for this week, we also have more of what we've been having for the past several weeks--repeated chances of severe weather, including heavy rain, high wind, hail, and tornadoes. Last night all four were in the area. A fairly stationary frontal boundary is draped across our part of the state. The weather mischief is focused at this intersection of differing-temperature air masses.
We headed for the fruit room in the basement with our supper, lantern in hand, when the National Weather Service data finally reappeared on the computer screen (after a prolonged, and very inconvenient "data not accessible" message) and we saw the dreaded red coloring (tornado warning) covering western Reno County, which includes the homes of all my local family members except Marcus, who lives in Hutchinson, in the NE part of the county. The accompanying message said tornadoes had been sighted between Plevna and Abbyville (where Joel and Hilda live in Shane and Dorcas's house), and it was heading east toward Abbyville. I called my parents in Partridge before we headed downstairs, to make sure they were seeking refuge.
We were barely halfway through our supper when Lowell's family joined us in the basement. They have only a small hole of a cellar, which always floods when it rains, and I understand perfectly why they aren't eager to sit down there. "The sky looks awful," they reported. The girls arrived with tote bags in hand, full of the most necessary things--mostly books apparently, and perhaps some clothes. They carried pillows. Hannah was wearing a yellow hard hat and reading A Tale of Two Cities. She commented out loud that it wasn't the most comforting book to be reading right then, but at least it just involved worries about guillotines in France in the 1700's--not an imminent tornado. The hard hat was donned on impulse. "When Joey offered it, I thought it seemed like a good idea."
From the fruit room, I couldn't very well keep track of the storm, but Grant and Lowell, who demonstrated the disturbing male propensity to keep roving around to look out the basement windows reported that it was raining horizontally and the trees were all stretching and leaning in one direction. We heard the hail, and Lowell said, "Everyone just keep on praying." The electricity went off and stayed off for about 2 hours.
After the storm passed, our rain gauge registered 1.6 inches of rain. Hiromi, who had worked all day in the garden, went out to check and reported that the vining crops and the tall sunflowers didn't look good--all blown crooked by a strong west wind. This morning, after another round of rain during the night, the rainfall measurement is 2 1/2 inches total. Not good for combine and grain truck navigation in the wheat fields, and all of it wrong for the preservation of a good wheat crop. Wind and rain makes it lodge (the stalks bend over and perhaps break) and the hail is always bad news--breaking off heads, and threshing the grain when it's dead ripe. In our county, some of the hail was the size of golf balls.
Still, what I can see from the house doesn't look too bad. The wheat is still there, and our trees look mostly unscathed. Even the big branch that's been dangling ominously over our driveway ever since the December 2007 ice storm is still dangling.
As always, though, it could have been very different not too far away. We learned from Cody, who came over last night, that where they live at the old Enos Miller farm, almost half of the barn roof is gone. And worse, the enormous old barn on the Melvin Yoder farm is reportedly reduced to a 10 foot tall pile of wreckage. This makes me especially sad. Joe and his boys were working on restoring/remodeling it to see it remain useful for many more years. The weather service was reporting large branches and trees down all over Hutchinson, with about half the city without power. Winds at the airport were clocked at 90 mph. And the same kind of weather is forecast for Thursday of this week and again over the weekend. This we could do without.
I couldn't reach Joel when I tried, and when he called back later he asked, "Do you have a place for us to stay?"
"Do you need one?" I asked.
"No." (Just looking for a reaction from a worried Mom.) They were fine--rode out the storm in their basement, which is all concrete-gray, and not cozy or cheerful. And Joel reported that Hilda did not let him go upstairs to watch the storm. Smart woman--that Hilda. They had electricity throughout, except for a very brief interval. The tornadoes apparently passed by overhead without touching down. (The rotation was visible on radar and from on-the-ground observers in the area.)
I'm sure that daylight and time will reveal more of what transpired last night. Already the sun is bright and the sky is blue, and some of us could almost believe that last night's drama was overblown inside our heads. But for others, dashed hopes for a good wheat harvest, and the prospect of massive cleanup or repair forces acceptance of a harsher reality.
As Lowell said, "Everyone just keep on praying."
But, although we've got some temperatures in the upper 90's forecast for this week, we also have more of what we've been having for the past several weeks--repeated chances of severe weather, including heavy rain, high wind, hail, and tornadoes. Last night all four were in the area. A fairly stationary frontal boundary is draped across our part of the state. The weather mischief is focused at this intersection of differing-temperature air masses.
We headed for the fruit room in the basement with our supper, lantern in hand, when the National Weather Service data finally reappeared on the computer screen (after a prolonged, and very inconvenient "data not accessible" message) and we saw the dreaded red coloring (tornado warning) covering western Reno County, which includes the homes of all my local family members except Marcus, who lives in Hutchinson, in the NE part of the county. The accompanying message said tornadoes had been sighted between Plevna and Abbyville (where Joel and Hilda live in Shane and Dorcas's house), and it was heading east toward Abbyville. I called my parents in Partridge before we headed downstairs, to make sure they were seeking refuge.
We were barely halfway through our supper when Lowell's family joined us in the basement. They have only a small hole of a cellar, which always floods when it rains, and I understand perfectly why they aren't eager to sit down there. "The sky looks awful," they reported. The girls arrived with tote bags in hand, full of the most necessary things--mostly books apparently, and perhaps some clothes. They carried pillows. Hannah was wearing a yellow hard hat and reading A Tale of Two Cities. She commented out loud that it wasn't the most comforting book to be reading right then, but at least it just involved worries about guillotines in France in the 1700's--not an imminent tornado. The hard hat was donned on impulse. "When Joey offered it, I thought it seemed like a good idea."
From the fruit room, I couldn't very well keep track of the storm, but Grant and Lowell, who demonstrated the disturbing male propensity to keep roving around to look out the basement windows reported that it was raining horizontally and the trees were all stretching and leaning in one direction. We heard the hail, and Lowell said, "Everyone just keep on praying." The electricity went off and stayed off for about 2 hours.
After the storm passed, our rain gauge registered 1.6 inches of rain. Hiromi, who had worked all day in the garden, went out to check and reported that the vining crops and the tall sunflowers didn't look good--all blown crooked by a strong west wind. This morning, after another round of rain during the night, the rainfall measurement is 2 1/2 inches total. Not good for combine and grain truck navigation in the wheat fields, and all of it wrong for the preservation of a good wheat crop. Wind and rain makes it lodge (the stalks bend over and perhaps break) and the hail is always bad news--breaking off heads, and threshing the grain when it's dead ripe. In our county, some of the hail was the size of golf balls.
Still, what I can see from the house doesn't look too bad. The wheat is still there, and our trees look mostly unscathed. Even the big branch that's been dangling ominously over our driveway ever since the December 2007 ice storm is still dangling.
As always, though, it could have been very different not too far away. We learned from Cody, who came over last night, that where they live at the old Enos Miller farm, almost half of the barn roof is gone. And worse, the enormous old barn on the Melvin Yoder farm is reportedly reduced to a 10 foot tall pile of wreckage. This makes me especially sad. Joe and his boys were working on restoring/remodeling it to see it remain useful for many more years. The weather service was reporting large branches and trees down all over Hutchinson, with about half the city without power. Winds at the airport were clocked at 90 mph. And the same kind of weather is forecast for Thursday of this week and again over the weekend. This we could do without.
I couldn't reach Joel when I tried, and when he called back later he asked, "Do you have a place for us to stay?"
"Do you need one?" I asked.
"No." (Just looking for a reaction from a worried Mom.) They were fine--rode out the storm in their basement, which is all concrete-gray, and not cozy or cheerful. And Joel reported that Hilda did not let him go upstairs to watch the storm. Smart woman--that Hilda. They had electricity throughout, except for a very brief interval. The tornadoes apparently passed by overhead without touching down. (The rotation was visible on radar and from on-the-ground observers in the area.)
I'm sure that daylight and time will reveal more of what transpired last night. Already the sun is bright and the sky is blue, and some of us could almost believe that last night's drama was overblown inside our heads. But for others, dashed hopes for a good wheat harvest, and the prospect of massive cleanup or repair forces acceptance of a harsher reality.
As Lowell said, "Everyone just keep on praying."
posted by Mrs. I at
5:12 AM
1 Comments:
More "Fancy Weather"
This may be a technicality but, officially, the tornadoes didn't pass by overhead without touching down. According to weather spotter terms, a "tornado" is not a tornado until it touches the ground. Even a menacingly rotating tail or funnel is referred to as a funnel cloud until it touches down, when it magically changes into a tornado. Don't ask me why!
By
Brian M, at 6/16/2009
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