Bad weather

Sherri Tierney

Sherri Tierney

New member
How many of you guys are dealing with all of the crappy weather tonight? I know some of you aren't too far from where I am. So far its been okay here, just a lot of heavy rain. It makes me nervous that we're expected to have such nasty weather over the next few days. My next big goal is to get a storm shelter. I am tired of having to freak out this time of year. My friend got one a few weeks ago and I'm pretty envious. If she weren't like 20 minutes away I'd go to her house when it storms. ;) We don't have a basement and we don't have an interior room. Our hallway is the most interior part of the house so we huddle in there but its still pretty open and it scares me.
 
We are in the 45% chance region. To be honest, I've never been super scared of tornadoes-- I mean, they freak me out, and I shake if I'm anywhere near one (and I've seen quite a few in my life), but for some reason, right now, I'm in panic mode. I swear things change when you have kids, because ever since I had Zach, I really freak out over these things.

I think the thing that most worries me is that the LRC (a meteorology theory that talks about the cycle length of storm systems-- essentially predicting the days between significant weather events) has been a 45-day cycle this year. 45 days ago is when the major Harveyville, KS tornado hit (the same system that spawned the Branson, MO tornado). Um, no thanks. Not okay with that.

Stay safe!!!
 
It's rained all week here in "sunny California." LOL! I haven't seen the sun in days and it's making me all down and grumpy.
 
You know, I was talking to DH tonight about how the weather threats never used to bother me. My grandma would sit and watch the weather channel constantly if there was any kind of storm predicted but I was never concerned in the slightest. Now I have kids and it has all changed. I don't sleep much when we have bad weather. I keep a weather radio next to my head so I can get the latest alerts (I don't listen to it continuously but it will go off if there is a change, watch to warning, etc.). If its a thunderstorm warning, I will lay there trying to doze but still pretty alert. If its a tornado watch forget about sleeping. If its a warning, I'm up, dressed and finding our emergency backpacks just in case.

I was sitting here and just heard this beep coming from the living room. My daughter is playing a Wii game and that's what it was but boy, just for a second, I freaked out a little.
 
We spent the night at a friend's house. We're in a mobile home and our neighborhood has ONE shelter that houses maybe 30 people. Yeah, and there are about 300-400 people here. So obviously whoever gets there first...and it gets cramped, hot, and VERY stinky.
So last night we went to a friend's house and spent the night...she lives across the street from a school and church that open their storm shelters to the public. Thankfully we didn't wind up needing them. Today is supposed to be even worse though...we'll probably go back over to her house, although I hate leaving Bear and the cats. But some things can't be helped.

A tornado DID hit Norman, where Tara lives. I haven't heard from her since yesterday afternoon, so I'm praying all is well with her family.
 
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I hear you. I worry about our pets at times like this too, but in the end its the people I need to protect. I don't know for sure what we'll do. Friends mentioned we should come over since they have a basement but they are across town and its either sit over there all day/night or just wait until it gets really bad and chance driving through something, you know? The school I work at is about a mile down the road and that would probably be out safest bet, but they don't leave it open regularly (the storm shelter is the library, imagine if they just left it open all the time... ) so we have to wait for word that it has been opened. IAs much as it scares me, we're probably safer riding it out at home (but we aren't in a mobile home either so its definitely different than your situation).

My boy has a birthday party this evening that is 5-8. I'm debating on whether or not to let him go. I guess we'll see how it goes through the day. So far it looks pretty gorgeous out but its early.

I am so tired after only 3 hours sleep last night (broken sleep too). *yawn*
 
Praying for you all in the watch/warning zones... I hate this time of year, so unpredictable. I hope Tara and fam are okay!!

Sherri - I was like that growing up - my dad LOVED storms and loved to sleep through them... my mom is deaf without her hearing aid, which she couldn't sleep with it in... so, I was the one half awake all through the night listening for sirens and the radio and I would be very freaked out about storms... today, hasn't change much, DH could sleep through a construction zone... so I'm up when it's storming, watching the radar, listening to the weather... but I feel a bit more calm, now that I'm a mama... but still don't like storms... :unsure:
 
I am fine and so is my family! :) It was a few miles away (maybe 4-5 miles?) from me. We were huddled in our bathtub with sirens going crazy. So I successfully freaked out my boys a couple of times running for shelter. Today is suppose to be worse. I am expected to be in Stillwater (an hour away) for a family friend and REALLY want to go. Have a feeling that I won't make it though. Better safe than sorry.

This weekend is expected to be nuts. I just did some retail therapy in the shoppe though. So, I plan to scrap through the yuckiness and take cover when needed. :)
 
Us too.. we're under the 45% chance of tornadoes.. I'm not freaking out yet.. but we'll see how I am later LOL
 
The tor con index has us at like a 6, so that's what, a 60% chance? Yesterday was supposedly a 7 on the index (according to Jo Dee Messina at her concert last night and the friends who watched our kids while we were there) but we didn't get more than a lot of rain. There was a good thunderstorm around 4am but nothing severe enough that I felt the need to wake up the kids.

The Weather Channel keeps saying their biggest concerns are for cities north of us and south of us. We're kind of caught in the middle. I think it will mostly be severe storms more so than the tornadoes. Or at least that is what I'm telling myself so I don't get too panicked. Seriously, day before yesterday I spotted a storm chaser driving through town and I about threw up. Its not an uncommon sight around here but it still got to me.

Tara - I am SO glad you are okay! I was checking out the facebook page of Meteorologist Doug Heady and someone posted that Norman had JUST been hit. I was thinking about you guys!

MamaBee said:
Praying for you all in the watch/warning zones... I hate this time of year, so unpredictable. I hope Tara and fam are okay!!

Sherri - I was like that growing up - my dad LOVED storms and loved to sleep through them... my mom is deaf without her hearing aid, which she couldn't sleep with it in... so, I was the one half awake all through the night listening for sirens and the radio and I would be very freaked out about storms... today, hasn't change much, DH could sleep through a construction zone... so I'm up when it's storming, watching the radar, listening to the weather... but I feel a bit more calm, now that I'm a mama... but still don't like storms... :unsure:
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My husband can sleep through pretty much anything and HAS slept through the weather radio a few times as well as tornado sirens. These were middle of the day storms and I remember waking him up and yelling at him to get downstairs to shelter and he just grumped and rolled over. I finally got him up and by then the sirens were turned off. So frustrating, and frightening. However, even if he weren't a heavy sleeper, he's not home at night and he sleeps during the day so I have 16-20 hours of being the one 'on duty' with the kids (he's been working a lot of overtime). If he's at work, I don't worry about him so much because they have a decent shelter. If he's home and sleeping, I worry a lot because I know he'll sleep through warnings... especially now that I'm working half the day. Anyway though, most nights its just me and the kids and I always worry about having to wake them both up and drag them downstairs to take cover.

The last time we had sirens going off, I nearly fell down the stairs I was so rattled. I got my kids down and realized the poor little dog was upstairs shut up in her kennel. I ran up and grabbed her and got us all settled in the hallway. Our power went out so I was checking everything on my phone and really confused because we weren't actually under tornado warning. The alarms kept blaring though. I texted DH and he told his boss the alarms were going off. Apparently a few other wives called and someone from the supervisor called the police dept. to confirm because they had nothing on the weather radio. Turns out the siren by our house had been hit by lightening and that set it off but they couldn't get it to turn off so it just went on and on until it finally ran out of battery. We had been huddled in the hall for about 2 hours when DH finally let us know that it was a false alarm. Scary none the less.

I'm on my way to the store to pick up another weather radio. We decided it would be best to have one upstairs and one down. I better get some other provisions while I'm there, just in case.
 
Eh. We're smack dab in the middle of the high risk zone in a double wide mobile home. A little freaked. My stomach is upset and I'm pretty sure it's the warnings. My camera bag with all my power cords, phone chargers, etc is sitting by the back door ready to go. I'm going to scrap after lunch but as soon as I'm done the external hard drive will go into a bag as well. Also flashlights, protein bars, medications. If we have to move to our shelter (across the street around the corner... maybe a 1.5 block walk), the bags go with us.

Dog can't go. If we have to go, I'll try to put him in a closet. He runs and hides, so it's not as easy as it sounds.

I just spent $250 at the grocery store, so I'm sort of hoping I have a house tomorrow so I can eat all those groceries.

There's been a big push here to get selective sirens. When a tornado is seen anywhere in our county, the sirens blow all over the county. It's a huge county. So we've gotten complacent here... if we hear the siren go off, we have to check the news first to find out if we really need to go. The selective sirens -- where they'll only sound in the area most in danger -- will be ready next week. Great timing.

Libby and Shawna are both in the same county as me and Heather isn't far from us. Think of us today as you watch the weather.
 
I'll be praying you are okay, Kim. I can't imagine county wide sirens. Ours are just for our city, thankfully. We don't have a huge county exactly but its still big enough that we would start to ignore warnings too.

We were hit with an F4, I think it was, in April of 2000. All we had ever heard around here is that a tornado will NEVER hit Parsons. They said (not sure who THEY are, everyone passed this train of thought around) because of how we were located tornadoes would always go around us. My grandma had grown up here and one had never hit town, everyone believed the talk. People would hear sirens and just kind of blow it off and go outside to watch the storm (reminding me of that Trailerhood song. :D). That day though, it hit. Thankfully there were no deaths and only a moderate injury (broken leg was the worst of it) but there was a lot of damage. I was at work and by the time we were told to take cover, it was over. It didn't get close to where we were though and we didn't even lose power until AFTER the tornado. Anyway, I didn't go through the huddling in the house, worrying, etc. and I think I've been making up for it since.
 
I'm in the OK Panhandle so I'm completely out of the threat area, but our weather man (out of Amarillo) kept saying, "Do not drive into Oklahoma tomorrow. I don't care what your plans are. Do not go." He said it like three times and acted pretty freaked out.

If any of you girls want to head north-west, I've got plenty of room for you and a basement (not that we'd ever need it).

Listen to Gary England. He's my weather-man crush and a total genius! :)
 
Tara, I was freaking out and praying for you yesterday and today! I'm so glad you're okay.

My brother and I are supposed to go to the Sporting KC mls game this evening, but even though the storms aren't expected to be bad until later, I am having my dad go instead of me. The two of them will be much faster getting to a shelter than me trying to juggle Zach and keep Jeffrey calm. Plus, my dad is a trained storm spotter and less of a fan than I am, so he would be better at staying aware of the situation and weather, whereas we'd zone out to the game and possibly not have the information we need to be aware... :/ Too bad- I was REALLY looking forward to going to the game- but I think that it's just the best choice to send them.
 
I saw this in a news article... they've changed the wording for storms, which is in some ways, creating a near-mass hysteria on my facebook feed, but is simply intended to get people to pay more attention to the situation.

My fear is that if nothing happens tonight, people are going to go numb to the more intense wordings, as well, and that could cause problems for more than just weather alerts, but that's just my opinion...

"The strongly worded message came after the National Weather Service announced last month that it would start using terms like "mass devastation," ''unsurvivable" and "catastrophic" in warnings in an effort to get more people to take heed. It said it would test the new warnings in Kansas and Missouri before deciding whether to expand them to other parts of the country."
 
I don't know how you girls do it. I would live in constant fear! My son is in Austin, and his home (he rents it out now) is in Jarrell which the whole town was once leveled by a tornado. It really hasn't bothered him...he's "weathered" it well!! He's moving back to Cali in July though...so that makes me happy,.

We had a stormy day here all day yesterday. I was in Costco and you could hear the rain pouring down, and the thunder! It was really quite cool. I know you girls back east that get this all the time probably laugh at us...but I love it. I love sleeping with it too...but we have no fear of tornados here.
 
Debra, I grew up in Arizona and rain and thunderstorms were awesome for me. I loved storms until I had kids. I've been terrified at the threat of tornado since then. I worry so much more now than I ever did before kids. Anyway, I still love sleeping during a storm as long as I know there is no tornado watches or warnings. If its just a thunderstorm, I cozy down and sleep really well... when it hits that severe phase, I start to worry because, in my mind, that's one step behind tornado watch.
 
We do not have the big tornadoes down here typically. What scares me the most is lightning. It hit a tree right next to our house and it was really scary. Loud and really bright and I was sitting next to the window it felt like you could feel the electricity through the window. The bark was up to thirty feet away and alot of times you do not get a lot of warning for a thunderstorm here.
 
Besides our tornado in 2000 the biggest amount of damage we had was after a wind storm. Those straight line winds are nasty. There were huge trees uprooted, cars mangled by trees, it looked about as bad as tornado damage in some places. Lightening is pretty scary too.

Our area doesn't appear to be the part that will get the brunt of tonight's storms. Our TOR:CON index went down to 5.
 
jessica31876 said:
We do not have the big tornadoes down here typically. What scares me the most is lightning. It hit a tree right next to our house and it was really scary. Loud and really bright and I was sitting next to the window it felt like you could feel the electricity through the window. The bark was up to thirty feet away and alot of times you do not get a lot of warning for a thunderstorm here.
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Lighting is super scary-- it hit my house once when I was young, so I'm not a huge fan of that. I kind of like the sound of distant thunder, up until I remember that distant thunder means someone else is having to deal with lightning, and I hate that thought.
 
It hits homes all the time here and often times the people do not realize right away. That is what I thought when it the tree that it had hit the house so me being so smart go outside to see if there is smoke then I saw the tree. I have pictures somewhere it is really kinda cool. It went in a spiral all the way up the tree. It was a huge pine tree.
 
Just wanted to check in here. Like Kim said, the weather is pretty yucky here. We usually go to church on Saturday nights, and our services were canceled tonight. That's a huge deal as we go to a really large church where they just don't cancel services.

Everyone stay safe!
 
I hope you all are safe!!! :unsure: You are in my thoughts & prayers today! :hugs:

I've never experienced a tornado before, only hurricanes here... but at least we have advance warnings when a hurricane is coming. The uncertainty about when a tornado might hit would put me in the loony bin for sure!!! :p
 
Libby, praying! I have family in Wichita and I see it being one of the areas that is supposed to get hit pretty hard. I'm praying hard for all of you!

As for our weather, our awesome weather guy gave us a little update on facebook a minute ago...

Ok, here is the mini breakdown. Then I will do a blog with and in-depth breakdown. We have supercells across central and western KS that continue to fire along the dryline. These cells have and will continue to produce tornadoes for the rest of the day and into the overnight hours. For us, I expect a few isolated storms for the rest of the day, but most of us should be dry. After 8 or 9pm, I think SE KS and NE OK will see scattered storms. They will be very scattered. However, some of those storms could be severe. Still the main threat being hail and wind with a low tornado threat. As we work into the overnight hours, thunderstorms should increase. Are main threat will be gusty winds and large hail. But we can't rule out some isolated tornadoes.
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It looks like we will be mostly in the clear tonight which I am thankful for. I just wish all the storms would go away though. I'm praying for everyone in the path. Its so frightening!
 
Hope you all have somewhere to take cover if anything comes near you!

My sister has been freaking out for a few days knowing things were headed their way. Can't blame her though since both my sisters and my mom all live in Joplin. However, what are the chances of another devastating tornado hitting that town again, less than a year later? But when the weather is scary, it's scary, no matter what.

Arizona is so calm 90% of the time, it's downright boring. July is about the only month anything interesting happens - monsoons, and haboobs - that big one last year was pretty ridiculous.

Anyway, I'll be tracking the weather - I have other friends and family in OK and KS.

Stay safe all!
 
Mary, I can imagine how your sister feels. We're just an hour from Joplin and that tornado hit really close to home for us. Its actually the second tornado I remember hitting Joplin. The first was about 16 years ago. There was a lot of damage to the business district with that one, but not the same kind of devastation to residential areas. We were in Joplin right after that one but we waited after last year's for about two months before we made the trip because we wanted to give residents some space and time to figure things out without people coming to town just to shop. We sometimes go to Joplin once a week though, other times not for 6 months at a time, it just depends on what we have going on but still... JOMO is a second home to us.

I remember the haboobs last year. Weren't there some tornadoes year before last? My MIL and aunt both live in AJ and my step-son lives between Hereford and Sierra Vista. Anyway... growing up there we still had a taste of bad weather. A dam burst once and our house flooded. Another time a dust devil flipped our neighbor's trailer right over on its side. Crazy stuff sometimes. Oh, and those monsoon storms... some of them were just magnificent. I never really worried about them back then, I'd stand outside and watch the lightening dance across the sky. Up around Oracle where our church camp was we had massive flash flooding... that was scary. We're talking a camp full of little kids and practically without warning the stream that ran through camp would be overflowing with water rushing everywhere.
 
Sherri - are you in Parsons? I was reading back through this thread trying to see where you are from. I used to drive through Parsons back and forth to college (I went to Kansas State in Manhattan).

Three of my boys and I went back to Joplin the month after the tornado - seeing that devastation was very difficult. My immediate family was, thankfully, on either side of the path and not affected, but 2 of my cousins lost their houses and many of my friends had losses too. When I was growing up there we had a couple of bad tornadoes. Of course, nothing like the one last year. But then that one is for the history books.

Stay safe!
 
My kids packed their tornado boxes just in case and put them in the basement. We're all sleeping downstairs tonight to be on the safe side. I hate tornadoes.. I'm terrified of them.. hoping it all just blows over. I can't take it.
 
I so wish that Oklahoma houses had basements. I miss that from living in Missouri. It sucks, big time. Thinking of my Kansas girls. It seems like it may miss me tonight.......the storms keep moving north. Stay save everyone!!!!!
 
Very few of the houses in our area have basements. When we were house hunting we saw 2 houses with basements, only one suitable for taking cover. A friend of ours has what is really more of a cellar (basically dirt walls) but it is better than nothing!
 
I grew up in Joplin with a full basement. My dad designed the house way back in 1955 - my mom still lives there. So we always had a place to go. My oldest sister only has a crawl space under her house and that's where she and her husband had to go on May 22 - I'm like ICK! Spiders and more! But they had no choice.

My other sister has always been terrified of tornadoes and they had their house built without a basement. But after a few years of living like that, they had a "fraidy-hole" built, which is a finished cellar. She said that night they had 18 people in it!
 
All of my extended family is in Joplin. My cousin that lost her house with the last tornado there did not have a basement but my grandma has an AWESOME basement.....that is where all my joplin family goes when there are storms. IT is like another house downstairs complete with bedrooms, bathroom and living area. AND a fireplace if needed. I want THAT kind of basement. :)
 
taracotta7 said:
All of my extended family is in Joplin. My cousin that lost her house with the last tornado there did not have a basement but my grandma has an AWESOME basement.....that is where all my joplin family goes when there are storms. IT is like another house downstairs complete with bedrooms, bathroom and living area. AND a fireplace if needed. I want THAT kind of basement. :)
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We have a really good basement. It's a really big room and currently is being turned into a man cave and has a poker table, couches, etc. I told Colby that if we lived down state we'd totally be sleeping down there tonight.
 
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