Tornado Warning!

It's that time of year again...time for the crazy Virginia weather to rear it's ugly head. You know, the warm, humid air that erupts almost instantly into a thunderstorm at the blink of an eye. It isn't just here in Virginia...it seems to be plaguing the South like something crazy!

I was fixing dinner, the hubs had just finished mowing the backyard and the kids were watching some T.V. It got really dark outside and I heard a big ole rumble of thunder. Uh, oh. I checked the weather on the computer and saw a big glob of red on the radar headed our way. Don't get me wrong, red is my favorite color, but when it's used in reference to the weather I start to panic a little bit on the inside.

The view from our front porch (looking across the street) -- pretty spooky, huh??

I asked the kids to turn on the Weather Channel and, bless their hearts they're so smart, they both read "tornado warning" across the bottom of the television screen. My daughter started freaking out. My son was mumbling something about hillbillies. Someone said something about dying. There was also concern about the fact that we have no basement so where would we even hide. I got the flashlight just in case. The hubs was in the shower and totally oblivious to what the children believed was our impending doom. The meteorologists started talking about a bow echo on the television. My daughter wanted to know what it was...I explained to her that I didn't pay that much attention in my Weather & Climate class in college and this was the perfect example as to why she needed to study hard. I called a friend who lives in the area where the thunderstorm had just passed through...it went just as fast as it came, she assured me. I finished fixing dinner in between claps of thunder and bright flashes of lightning.

The rain came. It quickly left. Dark clouds swirled and dissipated without incident. The really odd thing was that it was NOT windy outside AT ALL. It was kind of eerie and unsettling. The Weather Channel said something about a funnel cloud being spotted in Chesapeake (which really isn't that far from where we live). The hubs, who was out of the shower by now, thought it was quite amusing that I was even worried. I mean, come on, I'm a mother...it's my job to worry.

I suppose we got lucky, for now, considering what this particular band of storms did throughout Alabama and Georgia yesterday & today. My living room, however, wasn't spared. There were pillows everywhere. The flashlight was on and "standing guard." The kids had all of the necessities for a severe storm - Nintendo DS's, their blankets, the television remote and a Power Ranger. What happened to canned food and bottled water?!

Thank goodness a sense of normalcy returned to our household once the tornado warning was lifted.