Egads! The past couple days has brought thunderstorms to the area. These are storms that seem a bit unusual…similar to the severe weather in Missouri, Georgia, and North Carolina of late, but obviously not of as grand a scale.

I argue global warming with FB Tony. Don’t anyone panic here – I realize much of the claims are speculation (research is academia – what else would you expect?), but something is going on in the likes very few has seen this weirdness in their lifetime. I’m in the camp of climate change happens – I’m also in the camp believing man has a definite “unnatural” influence and impact that contributes to the ever-changing climate process. How much…no one can really say, so don’t try. It is more of a political volleyball than anything else.  Enough of that for now….

Yesterday’s mid-afternoon rain dumped on Fort Worth. Even the sheltered parking area under our building at work was flash flooding, prompting me to ask aloud, “now where did I put my rubbers (boots)?” as I stood in water approaching mid-shoe depth.

Tonight…oh gosh! I left work around 7:00 knowing dark thunderstorms were on the north horizon (the direction I had to go). 10 minutes on the road, multiple tornado warnings were issued that covered a 4-6 county area (also the direction I had to go). I pressed forward, after all 3 weeks ago I drove through 3 tornado warning zones and saw nothing. Today was different. Lighting was everywhere, eery claim, little rain. One thing nice about a commute during tornados – traffic is non-existent…at least it was this night.

The radio then claimed a tornado was on the ground in south Denton near a high school, heading east/southeast. Our house is south/southeast of that high school about 6-7 miles. Hmmm. I was at least 30 minutes from home in good weather. I texted the house – Deb was already in the bathroom with one of the two Royal Scotties. Apparently Zoey is claustrophobic or something and decided to brave the storm from the comfort of her living room chair perch….

The radio then said people traveling through Colleyville-Grapevine need to take cover because of baseball-sized hail and cloud rotation. Sure enough there was hail (ping-pong ball size) and wind…I was in the dang middle of it all at that very moment. With a quick exit from the freeway, I ducked under a drive-up bank canopy, against the wall of the building, with the wall of the building between my truck and the oncoming storm…so I thought.

The storm made a right turn and headed south, then turned back north. So now it was behind me. I looked out the back window of my truck and said “ah-oh”. The winds picked up bending trees nearly 90°. My truck started rocking in the wind. I looked up at the bank canopy – it was “flexing”. At that point I figure this was going to be exciting.

Nearly as quickly as it came, it passed. All was well at the bank drive-up window. With a quick text, I found out all was well at home. Heavy sigh…

A good thing? Dang right it was! I met a Dallas Morning News photographer under the bank canopy. We kind of rode out the storm together (although he was running around quite a bit with 2 cameras around his neck trying to photograph the storm), then he video-interviewed me for their website. I’m sure there are more important and harrowing interviews that will get posted, but I did get to briefly talk cameras with him. That was fun!