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.

Let the weekend begin.....

We had some big thunderstorms in the area yesterday. In the town where my Mom and Dad live, the roof was blown off the local cafe -- a not-so-pleasant surprise for the customers in the dining room enjoying the noon special. Fortunately, there was no damage at Mom and Dad's house. The storms moved through fast but here's a picture I took from our driveway of the last line of storms moving into Iowa around suppertime. Wow, I love seeing the towering thunderstorm clouds (as long as they're not heading towards me!)

We had an unexpected visitor show up in the backyard for afternoon snacks today! I'm always amazed at how their summer fur is so completely different from their winter coat. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see this old doe has quite a few scars -- I suppose from running through the woods and hitting all kinds of branches, fences, etc.

She was hearing or seeing something farther down in the yard......I don't know what it was, but it sure got her attention!

I did some work in the vegetable gardens this afternoon. The squash, zucchini and tomatoes are humongous and I had to trim some of the branches and vines out of that garden so the plants could get more sunlight. The other veggie garden got some attention too and I pulled out all of the lettuce, onions and beets. Except for a few smaller ones, these onions are all quite nice. There are so many though that I may have to put some in the dehydrator to make sure they don't spoil. The beet crop was mighty disappointing. I'd like to try replanting some more seeds, but I'm guessing it's probably too late in the season for that. (There's a couple small golden zucchini I picked too.)

The weather's been so cool and predicted to remain so into the next week, so I'm going to replant some leaf lettuce and more peas too.


I finally got my rain barrels set up today. I read in a Birds & Blooms magazine about one gentleman who used garbage barrels as a less expensive substitute for those +$100 rain barrels sold in home & garden stores, so I bought a couple of 50 gallon Rubbermaid garbage barrels and some downspout adaptor tubes. I installed them this afternoon on both ends of the garage where the downspouts are closer to the ground and I have level surfaces to set the barrels.

It looks like kind of a "Rube Goldberg" set-up, but I think it's good enough for who it's for and both of these together cost me way less than $100, so I'm happy.

Not much else going on with me. Tomorrow we'll be riding with some friends in the motorcycle "Cruise for Kids" benefitting our local Ronald McDonald House. The weather forecast sounds perfect and we're looking forward to a fun day. I'll take my camera and see if I can get any interesting pictures to share with you. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Thursday Thunderstorm

As predicted earlier today, we had a bit of severe weather move into the area this afternoon. As we were leaving work at 2 PM, the tornado sirens had been activated in Rochester--although all of the storms were still north of us (sometimes our local authorities are a bit over-zealous in their use of the sirens!)

By the time we got home, there were some pretty ominous looking clouds beginning to move in,

so I plugged some new batteries into the camera and headed out to the backyard -- hoping to catch some rotation in these clouds.

The wind was starting to pick up and the temperature had gotten a lot cooler.
I used to be a real thunderstorm ninny--down to the basement at the first sign of dark clouds, but as I've gotten older (wiser? or just more careless?) I kind of enjoy watching a good thunderstorm develop. Fortunately, this storm seemed to lose some of its intensity as it moved into southeastern Minnesota.

It got dark enough that my outside lights on the photosensor came on. All of the cars on the highway now had their headlights on also. (Isn't it amazing that all the birds continue to keep on singing? Do they somehow know that this wasn't going to be that bad of a storm?)

Here comes the rain.....

Time to watch the winds and heavy rain from inside the house!

And then the hail came......but fortunately, it was small and only lasted a couple minutes.

(you can hear it "plinking" on the roof of that metal fly-thru feeder on the deck)

By 3:15, the storm had moved on and we saw blue sky to the west.

The temperature had dropped dramatically (it was about 83 when we left work at 2:00).

And we picked up some much needed rain.

So we made it through this storm, but the weatherman is predicting the possibility of more severe weather tomorrow afternoon and evening when the approaching cold front moves in to meet our predicted 90+ degree afternoon temps. Hmmmm, maybe I'll get a chance to see those rotating clouds yet..........