Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Weather Fascination

It seems to always be tornado season in Alabama. I was sleeping so soundly this morning, when I heard Rick's very calm/danger voice tell me to get up, that we were under a tornado warning.
That is how the day started. It has rained all day, and as the rain fell the temperature has dropped, maybe some ice tonight. The storms passed over, there were a few tree limbs down, a little hail, but nothing serious.

Tornadoes are just a way of life here. In the spring they can become quite violent, spreading death and destruction along their paths. You'd think that fall and winter would quell their formation, but it doesn't. I can remember tornadoes in every month but January and I bet if I really looked back in weather history we have had January tornadoes.

I have been fascinated with weather my whole life. When I was maybe five or six, my dad's parents, Mamie and Johnny were always forecasting the weather. In the fall, Papa Johnny and I would be walking through the pea fields, he would look around and predict the winter would be fierce. He'd look at the size and thickness of the shells of nuts, spider webs, cloud formation,
wind, color of the sunset/sunrise,the habits of the creatures that lived around him and usually his prediction was right on the money. Mamie was the same way, we would walk through her flowers, herbs, she would sniff a plant, watch a butterfly, sift dirt through her fingers, look at the sky, and start talking about the weather.

Rick says that I am better than the local weather guys at predicting our weather, my brother Ricky is the same way. Most of mine and my brother's conversations at some point go straight to the weather, between the two of us we can out forecast The Weather Channel!

Maybe it is the Irish in us, I read some time ago, that during WWII no matter how fluent the Irish became in German or other languages, they gave themselves away because they always talked about the weather. Maybe we could work for the Farmer's Almanac!

For me, today has been a wonderful day. Rain all day long, wind blowing, bring it on!
Did I mention that I love snow! In times of drought, I have been known to do a rain dance or two, but I will do a snow dance at the drop of a hat! It doesn't even have to stick.........let those flakes start falling and I act like a three year old. I can make snow ice cream with the best of them.

I suppose my fascination with weather is why I have never longed to live on an island paradise.
I love change, especially in weather. Oh sure, blues skies and sunshine most of the time sounds good in theory, but I have to have the change..........the wind, the thunder, lightening, rain, cold
snow, heat. A change in the weather, my kind of change.


1 comment:

  1. I read in a book by Mark Twain that when he lived in the Southwest the Native Americans that lived just outside of town packed up to move. People asked them why they were leaving. They told them a flood was coming. The town was situated near a river. No one listened to the natives, but the flood did come. Mark Twain went up to the highest floor of his hotel while water flowed over everything. I thought that was so interesting.

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