Houston Channel 13’s new Super Duper Mega Doppler radar shows a thunderstorm about 3 miles away from my present location. I can hear the thunder and see the lightning. Does that not mean I see the thunderstorm or that we are experiencing a thunderstorm?
I think about things such as that. The one thing I wanted to be when I grew up that I didn’t reach was being a TV weatherman. My Dad even helped me make a map inside a clear plastic sleeve so I could write temps down upon it using a grease pencil. Man, if I had all the stuff out there today on the Internet I probably would be retiring as a weatherman right about now. Heck, I’d have to retire because you can’t have a fat, bald weatherman.
Actually, I am just as content to sit and watch the weather. My ideal place to live must have a perfect perch to watch storms. Down here in the humid-itity subtropical world you watch the storm blow in, the trees swaying like a Hula dancer and the lightning lighting up like an extraterrestial blood vein. Then comes the rain. You watch it puddle and drip ’till it drips no more.
Then you head inside the house for the A/C because the sun will come out and you will live in Sauna Land.
Since I have been sitting here, writing, the storm hasn’t seemed to move. It is “training” as the weather geeks say. Here is what the National Weather Service in Lake Charles says:
SIGNIFICANT WEATHER ADVISORY FOR HARDIN…JASPER…NEWTON… TYLER…JEFFERSON AND ORANGE COUNTIES…SIGNIFICANT WEATHER ADVISORY FOR BEAUREGARD…ALLEN…ACADIA…CALCASIEU…JEFFERSON DAVIS… VERMILION AND CAMERON PARISHES UNTIL 515 PM CDT… AT 415 PM CDT…NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE METEOROLOGISTS DETECTED A LINE OF STRONG THUNDERSTORMS FROM NEAR LAKE ARTHUR THROUGH LAKE CHARLES AND ORANGE TO NEAR JASPER. THE LINE WAS NEARLY STATIONARY. THE PRIMARY THREATS FROM THESE STORMS ARE CONTINUOUS LIGHTNING AND PEA TO NICKEL SIZE HAIL. SEEK SHELTER IN A SAFE HOME OR BUILDING UNTIL THESE STORMS HAVE PASSED. THESE STORMS COULD PRODUCE RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF ONE TO TWO INCHES IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME…RESULTING IN PONDING OF WATER AROUND LOW LYING ROADWAYS.
Enjoy the storm if you’ve got one and even if you don’t, be careful out there.
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