"It's a Twister! It's a Twister!"

As I was tucking into to bed early this morning I was lulled to sleep by the thunder, lightening, and pouring rain. It had been raining on and off for the past couple of days and I just sat back and enjoyed each and every storm. Until last week- when it came into conflict with teaching in Portable Land. Unfortunately, Portable Land was not built to withstand the furies of nature here in Houston, Texas. The walkway ramps were flooding, the roofs were leaking, and the rain on the metal roof made it sound as though at any moment the roof was going to cave in. As I was getting into my car and the sky at 7:00 am was pitch black I began to wonder if I had the wrong time- it was too dark to be time for me to be driving into work. Shwibbie [my Honda] was going to have to do the job of a hummer today. There were literally waves rolling through the flooded parking lot. It was touch and go for awhile but I could see our salvation on the other side of the entrance gates. Shwibbie did magnificient and we made it to school in time. Not the story for all the teachers. Those in Portable Land were called into a meeting before school started, informing us to be prepared to bring our classes into the library in the event of life-threatening weather. Prepare for pictures to come later.

As I sit telling you about this my television is beeping at me...no not bleeping out those naughty words- rather there is a flash flood warning, tornado watch and flood advisory for my county... what does that mean to me?

I refer you to the internet on Tornado Formation: "A tornado is a violently rotating column of air in contact with and extending between a cloud (often a thunderstorm cloud) and the surface of the earth. Winds in most tornadoes blow at 100 mph or less, but in the most violent, and least frequent, wind speeds can exceed 250 mph. Tornadoes, often nicknamed "twisters," (should I be taking defensive driving lessons to practice dodging flying cattle?), typically track along the ground for a few miles or less and are less than 100 yards wide, though some monsters can remain in contact with the earth for well over fifty miles and exceed one mile in width.

Tornadoes can appear as a traditional funnel shape, or in a slender rope-like form. Some have a churning, smoky look to them, and others contain "multiple vortices" - small, individual tornadoes rotating around a common center. Even others may be nearly invisible, with only swirling dust or debris at ground level as the only indication of the tornado's presence. Tornadic phenomena can take several forms." How interesting?! I did not even know there was such a word as tornadic. Who knew?