Saturday, August 14, 2010

Storm Clouds

We had some pretty good thunderstorms with tornadoes in SE Minnesota yesterday afternoon. The first tornado was spotted around 3:30 in the afternoon in the county just west of ours. For the next could of hours, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes continued to develop and move through the area. Finally I couldn't stand it any longer and grabbed my camera to step outside the front door and see what was going on. I was able to capture some slow rotation in these clouds as they passed over our neighborhood. It would have been a lot more dramatic with tornado sirens wailing in the background, but they had already been turned off. Instead, if you listen real closely at the beginning, you might hear a song sparrow.

The good news is that no tornadoes developed from these cells and we ended up with just some heavy rain. We're looking forward to cooler temps and lower humidity starting tomorrow.

4 comments:

Gaelyn said...

Can certainly see those clouds swirling. Glad you only got rain. I can see how that could lower your temps, but seems like the humidity would be higher.
I'm so glad to live without humidity. When it's over 10% here we're all complaining about being sticky.

Cindy said...

Ruthie, thought of you yesterday. Glad everything is ok. We've had 5" of rain in a couple of days here. Funnel clouds spotted 5 miles west of us last night. I am sooo looking forward to winter! This heat and humidity is for those southern people.

Mollie said...

Gaelyn, I live in San Diego and don't like high humidity either, but I've also lived in the upper midwest and sometimes these storms are season changers--so the humidity drops instead of rises, the air cools, all is well. Believe me, I've been hearing from my relatives back in Wisconsin complaining about the heat AND the humidity. Sure this storm was a blessing for them!!
Great video, Ruthie! And yes, heard the song sparrow. Sweet.

Jayne said...

Wait a second... didn't I see a woman on a broom? EEK... that is scary Ruthie! Huge rotation there. Glad all was well in the end and all you got was rain.