OT a rude awakening.......

[BobT-47P15]

So, I'm sitting at the computer, dozing in my chair, about 11 o'clock tonight. Then I hear something. Listen for a couple minutes......darn, it's the tornado sirens going off. About that time Mary Ann, who was in bed asleep, hears them also and gets up. I bring in the cat carriers, she inserts cats, then we watch the tv and the weather outside to find out what is happening.

Apparently some power outages in the area, some tree damage from wind, and thunderstorms with possible golf ball to baseball size hail. Some winds clocked at up to 80 m.p.h......straight winds, as they call them. Even a couple funnel sightings over in Kansas or Oklahoma. The TV weather people were right on top of it, as they usually are here. Finally after an hour or so, things calmed down some. We had some heavy rain and wind, but nothing severe. Temp probably dropped at least 10 degrees. Went out to the garage......had been stringing my stuff around for the last two or three weeks and leaving her car out. With the possibility of hail, I shuffled all that junk enough to bring in her car. I was thinking about what a mess it would be if a tornado really hit.....all this stuff we have in our home......would be gone. Some not so important, really, but some is, at least to us.

The Plymouth slept thru it all, but you never know what might happen next time. Darn weather. Ooops.....now it's raining again. Ah, well........

[Don Coatney]

Bob;

You actually have tornado sirens in your town?

[1just4don]

I am VERY glad your weather was as good as you could have hoped for,,,nasty tornadoes are indeed destructive and dangerous!!

They start blowing the sirens if the tornado is within 20-30 miles. I guess I could live with that since IF activity in the area. Might be another.

My biggest complaint is they break into every good tv show every 5-10 minutes with the news that this or that town is going to have a 'rain' cloud overhead in 20 minutes. Anybody can SEE which way the radar is moving and WHERE it will be about when,,,besides loking out the window and judging the severity for yourself isnt a bad option.

I think there are people who are getting needlessly traumatized with constant barage of severe weather warnings moving in. 9 out of 10 times it sprinkles to rains an inch and thats about all. Those colored maps are notoriously WRONG!!! I think they could do the same thing with that trailer blip flashing across the bottom of the screen and the little map,,,they dont have to harp and harp endlessly!! Its like the little boy that cried wolf too often and nobody listened when their was REAL danger.

I used to work with people,,,whenever a warning or watch was issued they about FREAKED!! I have a daughter that hates lightning and thunder,,, and one that LOVES it and would stand and watch it for hours!!! Different strokes, for different folks. But we JUST dont need scared to death and treated like we were 2 yr olds.

[Merle Coggins]

Its like the little boy that cried wolf too often and nobody listened when their was REAL danger.

I agree. They were warning us all day yesterday, and even the night before that we were going to get hammered with SEVERE weather. It was windy all day, and when I watched the weather before I went to bed at around 9:30 they finally admitted that the storms had fizzled out by the time they got to us. I woke up sometime in the night to a small thunder boomer. I don't know what time it was as it didn't alarm me enough to roll over to see the clock. I just went back to sleep.

I heard that they did get hammered farther north of here. Sounds like a few tornatos ripped through the center of the state. There were even reports of softball size hail.

[BobT-47P15]

The sirens are officially known as "storm warning sirens" I guess. They use them for possible severe thunderstorms and also tornadoes. An actual tornado goes thru our area from time to time. I think it was 3 or 4 years ago now, one went thru neighboring Carl Junction and on east of here, causing a lot of damage. So, we take note and watch just to be safe. Later in the night, around 3 am, thunderstorms moved in with such loud and strong thunder, it rattled the house a little.

[D25_Steve]

Just saw the weather go from hot and humid, to severe winds and then rain, and now it is perfectly calm. All in about 15 minutes.