We're Okay

To say there was "a little weather" in Chicagoland yesterday is a profound understatement. When I went to bed on Saturday night, I was aware we were to have rain, potentially heavy, on Sunday. Around midnight, the weather service changed our "moderate" risk to "high risk" of damaging winds and hail, heavy rains and the potential for tornadoes. I didn't hear any of that.

Sunday, I decided to bring in the deck chairs, finally. I opened the back door and, whoa. The temperatures were hovering around 70 degrees, in mid-November, in Chicagoland. It was so nice, I decided to bring in a chair and then grab my next scarf project and sit on the deck. The sky was heavily overcast so I knew any enjoyment of the mild air would be fleeting.

By the time I collected the next skein of yarn and made it to the back door, it was raining. It was a spotty shower but contained lightning and thunder. I logged onto the computer to check the weather. It was 11:45. The first tornado of the day had hit Washington, Illinois, a suburb of Peoria, a good 2 hour drive south of me.

Concerned, because there was a tornado watch issued for me, I turned on the television. NBC, Channel 5, came up since I'd watched them the last time I'd watched TV. They had graphics and drawings and 3D models. They had been on the air; on the air; since 10:30 a.m. watching this storm. They had red and orange and purple and yellow images. I haven't seen that much of those colors since the psychedelic 1960's. They had charts and arrows and models showing tornadic rotation, all of it heading toward Chicago. I watched, sitting snugly in my recliner. At 12:10, NBC announced another tornado, spawned from the same cell that had passed over Washington, Illinois, was on the ground south of Chicago. It was moving north northeast. The storm track took it well south of Wheaton.

At 12:15, a large cell of this storm line passed over me and started pouring rain. You couldn't see across the street. The lightning was nearly constant for about 5 minutes and the wind made all the trees in the yard groan. But, as quickly as it hit, it passed.

That's what was quite amazing to me, how fast this whole system blasted through Chicagoland. It was moving at 55 to 60 miles per hour.

I turned to Channel 2, CBS, to check on the Bears' football game. There was nothing going on at Soldier Field other than the Baltimore Ravens were leading, 20 minutes into the game, 10 to nothing. Ah yes. It's just another sorry football game in the life of a Bears fan. Normally, I wouldn't care about the Bears but I was curious about the weather in Chicago. They cut away for a commercial and the Channel 2 meteorologist came on screen with updates.

This projected track, the red box, took the storm dangerously close to downtown Chicago and Soldier Field, where there was a football game in progress. My location is in the center of the box, which is the outline of the county where I live, where the "12:00 PM" ends. I wasn't going to be affected by this cell. I would have to deal with heavy rain.

When they cut back to the game, the evacuation order had been given to get people out of the stands as lightning had hit a skyscraper in visible proximity to Soldier Field.

I don't remember the last time I saw a pro football game in Chicago suspended for weather. Baseball gets this all the time, and high school foot ball games can find themselves, in those early season late August and early September Friday night games, running afoul of thunderstorms, but not the Bears. Then they panned the camera skyward.

That's not what went over me. I realized that the cell that went over me had moved, as the whole line of storms moved, north northeast. These clouds were the advance wave of what was in that above red box. I've sat through my share of downpours, sleet, and snow at Iowa football games but there is no way anyone should be in the stands at any event when the threat of severe weather with lightning, hail and high winds are incoming.

For the next 2 hours, the news told of tornadoes destroying sections of towns, perhaps even whole small towns in eastern Illinois. I watched as the rain and wind pounded Soldier Field. At one point, you couldn't see across the field, it was raining so hard. News reports were coming in of tornadoes reported in the south suburbs but it was moving east, more than north. By 2:30 p.m., I had sunshine. The first band of storms well to the east and moving out across Lake Michigan and into Michigan.

Another, smaller, band of showers came through around 4. It was accompanied by extremely high straight-line winds and the cold front arrived around 8. It had been 68 at 11. It was 43 by 8 p.m.

The girls started the adventure with me, Pilchard in my lap and Mija next to me on the recliner. But the thunder scared them so that they found more comfort just sleeping on shirts I left on my bed. I would get up, every 15 minutes or so, and check on them, but they stayed there through the whole afternoon. When the winds picked up, around 4, the power started to flicker, dim and finally went out completely. It would be out for a minute or two and come back on. I'd fix the time on the microwave only to have the power go out. I was also trying to cook supper so I really needed some time without the flickering. I quit fixing the time (in fact, I think it's still wrong) and got supper cooked when the power went out for a good 45 minutes. I wound up eating spaghetti and meatballs in the dark.

Rooting in the closet, I found my flashlight, propped it up on the back of the recliner and spent the time after supper crocheting the next scarf.

Between watching the news and crocheting by flashlight, I got a lot done on this particular scarf. The power came back on for good about 20 after 6.

The devastation is terrible. The stories of survival are incredible. While the latest tornado on record in Chicago is December 4, 1957, and there is a potential for this kind of weather any month of the year, you can't tell me there's not something to climate change. It shouldn't be 70 degrees in November in the Midwest, maybe in Louisiana or Arkansas, but not Chicago. We should be thinking that 50 is balmy at this time of year.

I have some small branches to clean up is all. We're okay. My heart aches for those who lost everything with Thanksgiving only 10 days away.

Beverage:  Irish Breakfast tea

Deb

The Cult of Weather

This is going to be something of a tidy rant. You've been warned. (wink)

If you were anywhere near a TV or radio or the Internet and checking the weather yesterday, you know about the cold front that moved through the midwest last night. That front is currently in New York.

It's late spring and summer is next week. You'd have to be pretty dense not to realize that living in the mid-section of the country exposes you to some of the most rapidly changing weather on the planet. We get the cold air from Canada and the warm air from the Gulf of Mexico. When they meet each other, particularly in the spring, the churning dance produces some of the most violent weather ever seen. We choose to live here. As much as my knees acted up in March and April with the damp chill of spring mornings, I cannot imagine living in San Diego with weather that is uniform. It has its place, but it's not me.

So, I'm attuned and have been for most of my life, to the changes wrought by the weather in the land where I choose to live. But yesterday's events brought something to the forefront of my mind, something that is not, I think, a positive. We have developed a "cult of weather", as I'm calling it.

It started in the morning with announcements that thunderstorms with high winds and heavy rain would develop in the afternoon. Scientifically, we know this will happen because the sun heats the atmosphere. Heat rises where it meets the cold air of the upper atmosphere. The air doesn't have to be from Canada. Air temperatures at 30,000 feet up are not the same as in your back yard. We know what happens. We've known for decades. This mix breeds thunderstorms.

But what we've seen, with the advent of social media and the ability to make movies with a cell phone, is the rise of the everyman storm chaser. Once the province of people of science, now the average person can hop in a car and, with a computer or just a smart phone, keep tabs on the National Weather Service's radar and warnings and The Weather Channel's on-air personalities pointing to green screens and making prognostications. You, too, can be rightthere, when the winds start circling and the funnel forms. You, too, can get your name and your video shown on the nightly news. We think this is normal and we are addicted to it. We want more.

I followed the weather yesterday. I do want to be informed, make no mistake about that. If I had places to go last night, I would have wanted to know if heavy rain would have interfered with those plans. From Tuesday night onward, however, a graphic was sent around the Internet with the following information, "There is going to be a derecho Wednesday night that starts in Iowa and heads east. This weather event will impact 65 million people. Share this with those in its path." Huh?

Last year, a derecho that formed west of DeKalb and roared east caused billions of dollars in damage. I was, at the time, in a movie theatre with Pam watching "Brave". The thing about this event was that it sprang up 45 miles west of me with little to no warning. Millions of people were inconvenienced and thousands were without power. What did we learn? That yelling the equivalent of "there could be fire" in this crowded country is the way to go. We demand immediacy and the talking heads about weather are our new prophets and preachers. Let me take a moment here and let out a heavy sigh.

"Sixty-five million people are in the affected area." As yesterday went on, the rain predictions grew. Eventually, it was locally heavy rainfall totals of inches. Back in April, we had an inches event that flooded the neighborhood and the street by the office. We knew the potential existed, at the time, for heavy rain. There's no place for inches of water to drain when it comes down in minutes. So the prospect of inches again last night made me check the house and yard and batten down the hatches. The garbage cans were shoved next to the deck. The flower pots on the front steps got moved off the steps to the ground and I tipped over the deck chairs to prevent them being lofted and tossed.

In hindsight, as I was walking out my back door this morning and righting a couple of them to get off the deck, where they are isn't going to cause them to become airborne unless there is a tornado in my back yard. At the most, they would have been shoved next to the house or into the flower pots, but I believed the sentences about the forming of a derecho.

I'm embarrassed. I believed. From March through November, professional and amateur storm chasers will fan out from Texas through Wisconsin, Colorado to New York, Oklahoma to Georgia, all trying to see the elusive weather phenomena known as a tornado. We will sit, glued to our maps and our talking heads, watching them tell us, in ever increasingly shrill voices, about potentials and probabilities. We will believe. We analyze their maps, hoping we can figure out what they, who may have years more training than us, cannot; just where the storm cells will "pop". We grab our cell phones and stand in our doorways with them aimed at the heavens, when we should be seeking shelter, hoping for that one bit of film footage that gets the Channel 4 News Team to interview us on camera. We. Will. Believe.

Again, allow me a moment to sigh. The deaths of 3 professional and 1 amateur storm chasers in Oklahoma last month are now a footnote to the weather. I feel they and the manner in which they died have been forgotten in the drive to be in the right place at the right time. We have gone from, "This afternoon, conditions are right for strong thunderstorms with locally heavy rains and high winds to develop. Some of these storms could produce hail and may have the potential for tornadoes. Please check in with us and be prepared to move to a place of shelter should conditions deteriorate" to "OMG! ZOUNDS! 65 MILLION PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE IMPACTED BY THIS STORM!"

You know what my impact was? It rained. That's it. It rained. No high winds. No hail. Not even inches of rain. It was a cloudburst and then it went away. Pilchard was fine all evening. We had a few flashes of lightning but she never ran to hide. There were heavy rains and winds south and west of me. Tornado sirens went off in various Chicagoland communities. It was nasty in places out there.

Increasingly, we are sounding alarms for potentials that never show, but we believe they will because we are believing what our prophets are telling us. We have developed, thanks to the awfulness of the past, warning systems that reduce death tolls from these major storms. This is tangible proof, life-saving proof, of what the early prophets, preachers, teachers and diviners worked to prove. I feel, however, that we have also removed the ability of people to make informed choices on the weather's impact. "Tut tut. It looks like rain" is now "Take cover! It could be the storm to end all storms!" The only thing missing is the running around waving our collective arms in the air. It's not quite Chicken Little, but it's so close.

I am a very small voice calling for a return to reasonableness. I do need to know if conditions are right for the development of severe weather. I do need to know if that weather impacts me. I do need to know at what point to head to the basement. I don't need my senses bombarded with ZOUNDS! and OMG! and graphics in reds and purples. At some point, the weather will become the little boy who cried wolf. I hate to see the result of that.

For the record, it's a beautiful day today, clear, sunny, mild. I didn't need the weather man to tell me that. I could see it when I walked out by back door. 

Beverage:  Yorkshire Gold Tea

Deb

Wee bit o' weather.

It takes a bit to make me nervous with regards to the weather. Growing up on a farm in northeastern Iowa, I have experienced all sorts of weather from a blizzard that had us without power and snowed in for 4 days to a tornado that blew out the windows in the living room which sent glass flying all over the place cutting my sister in two places which resulted in stitches. I like to think I have a calm head when the weather gets rough.

Last night, I do confess to a bit of unease as this line of storms came through. I was cooking dinner and heard the rumble of thunder. I knew we were to get storms and, due to the recent repeated waves of rain, it barely registers a look out the window anymore. This was different. It was calm, dead calm. If you've lived in the Midwest or "tornado alley", you know this calm. So, I decided this perhaps merited a bit more attention.

The first line came through around 5:10, knocking out power for about 3 minutes. When you're cooking on an electric stove, this is a bit problematic. Oh well. That wave was followed, in 10 minutes, by another, much stronger, much more electrical wave. The sheer amount of lightning and thunder around the area was almost double of previous storms. That's when I noticed Pilchard doesn't like thunder storms.

She meowed and wanted my lap. Then, with a crack and boom of lightning followed by thunder, she would take off. No amount of trying to sound soothing, "It's okay ladies. Mom's here." and ear scratches made her feel comfortable.

And then, when the tornado sirens went off, well, you can see where she went. Even under the settee was not comforting enough. She finally went under the cedar chest in the office and stayed there until I sat down to eat dinner.

Mija, on the other hand, while nervous, seemed comforted by my occasional ear scratches and my presence.

I opened the back door and looked at the clouds when the sirens went off. I didn't see anything and, in checking the radar online, the warning was for east of me. This is the first time the girls have experienced the siren here. It's 3 blocks from the house so it can be heard, clearly. It is disconcerting.

Without the lightning and thunder, last night's rain would have been wonderful to experience. The air temperature was warm and the rain was warm. I would have loved to sit on the deck with a mug of tea and just get drenched. But, with all the lightning around, that's not a real smart thing to do.

Today is glorious. It is a reminder that rain brings brilliant days. If we weren't expecting rain again over the weekend, I'd put the top down. Welcome to summer.

Beverage: Huckleberry tea

Deb

Sunburn and 60 mph winds--long

Hot tea and the rest of a package of Tuxedoes pseudo-Oreo cookies never tasted so good. What an incredible 48 hours I have had.

It started at 9:10 a.m. Friday, June 19th. I'm sitting at my kitchen table putting the finishing touches on a piece of foam core which has materials printed off the Clan Thompson web site. It's just for information purposes and to make the table look filled. I hear a siren. Now, I live very close to the College Avenue commuter train station in Wheaton and they have one of those lightning sirens. If lightning is in the area, that siren goes off. But as this siren was joined by 3 others, that's the tornado siren. I'm not dressed, mind you. I took the day off so I could go to the games and set up the tent without dragging everything from the parking lot so I haven't been up but an hour. I looked outside and the wind was blowing but I couldn't see anything that looked "tornado-ish". Hop on the Internet.

A tornado warning had, indeed been issued for Lake in the Hills, Crystal Lake and points east of there. A tornado had been spotted heading for the ground up there, but that's a good 40 miles from me. Jon was on Yahoo Messenger and said no sirens went off at the office, a mere 2 miles from me. Curious. The warning expires but the heavy storms rumble through about an hour later. High winds and rain, but no hail. I debated on putting up the tent Friday night as the weather was to breed more.

The storms were passed by noon and I know they appreciate clans being around on Friday night. So, I set up my tent and sat back to wait for the few people I knew would come by.

The Oakbrook Polo Grounds are adjacent to Butler National Golf Course. At 6:10 p.m., their lightning sirens went off. It had grown cloudy, semi-ominous. The heat from the day was churning the clouds as I sat and watched. The polo grounds has a reasonable ability to slough off water, but it was still exceptionally muddy and soggy. I chose not to wear the kilt Friday night and wore tan pants. I may have to soak the hems to get out the mud and dirt. I decided to pack it in for the night with that warning as they will be quiet insistent that people get under grounded tents so no one is going to wander looking at clan tents.

At 6:35 p.m., the PA announcer issued a more ardent plea for people to move to a grounded tent. By now, in the southwest, brief flashes of lightning could be seen in the distance. It still didn't look that ominous. I lowered the tent to just above the table, put everything under the table, either in plastic bins or on top of the bins and took with me, anything I didn't want getting wet.

It was starting to sprinkle when I reached the car. It really appeared to be heading south of the event although the sky was streaked with spider web lightning. I headed home. Now, it's a good 15 minute drive from the Polo Grounds to my house. Part of the route takes me by my office. As I crested the hill adjacent to the office, heading west on Roosevelt Road in Glen Ellyn, I drove into the teeth of a gale. The sky and road and landscape went gray. I could see the taillights of the minivan in front of me, but nothing else, not even street lights. Fortunately, I know the road intimately. I put on 4-wheel drive, slowed to 20 and just moved west. I was never, ever scared, even though the wind driven rain is horizontal and my wipers cannot keep up with it. The only thing that crossed my mind was, would I see anything being blown by the storm before it hit me?

The nucleus of the storm was over in 5 minutes and then the sky to the west brightened. I drove onward, turning north off Roosevelt to go to the house. There were branches down all over the place which turned the drive into an obstacle course. I got home and on the front porch was the box full of items I'd ordered to sell at the tent on Saturday. It's a pretty good box. It has not disintegrated in spite of getting soaked last night and sitting on wet ground today.

I checked the radar and saw that the very bad stuff was north of me and I am, in turn, north of the festival. There was a band of yellow, which is not good, heading over the venue but maybe it won't be as bad as we think.

At 9:15 p.m., I received a call from one of the clan organizers saying he's not sure, but my tent might have been blown over. I thought about the few things I had left. Well, if the tent is gone but everything else is okay, I will be happy.

This morning, I arrived at 7 a.m. to this:

I had done a superb job of anchoring the tent into the ground. But 60 mph horizontal winds had come through, attempted to lift it off and then decided to flatten it instead. The table is wet. Those white chairs are wet. My green captain's chair was a bit wet but everything behind it, which was two plastic bins, was dry.

You should know, dear reader, that on Thursday night, I slept "wrong" on my right arm and the wrist bothered me all day Friday. Today, I wrapped the hand and wrist so as not to aggravate whatever it was I had injured. So, I'm already at a disadvantage when I arrive. They are refusing to allow people to bring cars onto the grounds as they were, if possible, more muddy than Friday. Some vendor tents had been uprooted and carried onto the golf course or turned into bowling balls, mowing down tents in their path. Volunteers had removed the twisted tents they could but weren't sure if mine was salvageable. I surveyed the tent and decided the only way to know was to get it up again. Enter Clan Young.

Now this clan is the epitome of a biker group. Their motto is "We Ride" and their members show up in Harley gear or black leather with Clan Young crests painted on the back. They give weapon demonstrations and are generally looked at over one's glasses. Their tents had withstood the onslaught with the exception of some ties tearing. They set everything back up and came over to my tent en masse. Four of them grabbed a leg and we righted the ship but two of the aluminum legs were bent. Some of the cross sides were snapped at the screws holding them together. Not to worry. One of them headed over to the pile of ruined tent frames and grabbed pieces. Using copious amounts of duct tape, we got the tent up and standing. Let it never be said that the Scots aren't resourceful.

I decided NOT to raise the tent to it's highest point. People would just have to duck. But it was up and functional and the fact that it was clear as a bell and would be 88° today meant I NEEDED a tent to stay cool.

The only problem was the wind. It was still windy today, although not nearly as windy as last night. What is it with large open areas? I have been in rock quarries in August where the surrounding area is still as a hunting cat but you drive out onto the face of a rock quarry and there's a 20 mph wind? Not a breeze, mind you, a wind to the point of not being able to talk, it's that strong. There was a wind today, about 15-20 mph. At 10:15 a.m., the tent started leaning a bit, to the left in this photo, where the sides had been damaged. A gust came through, the thing gave a shudder and down it came. I was standing to the left holding onto the closest leg. That's not one which was bent. That large framed item is the old map I was telling you about. I got it framed on Thursday night and it looks marvelous, really draws people in.

To say I was discouraged would be an understatement. People showed up from all over to help move the frame off my table. One of the bent legs snapped and another side snapped. It was clear there was no tent for me today. I wrapped up the top and a volunteer helped me bend the frame into a transportable piece. He then dragged it over to the pile of other frames which would be tossed. I started packing up my stuff. I know people here. Indeed to the right are clans Wallace and Young. I know the people in Clans Pollack, MacLeod and Douglas. Several Sinclairs, to my left, came running including their North American chief. Their clan chief was in attendance today, all the way from Scotland, for their annual meeting. Nice chap who played a mean bagpipe. But how could I ask any of these people to share a space with me? I just felt I would come home and consider the games a wash. I know a number of people within the Illinois St. Andrew Society, too. But they didn't have extra tents because what they had was being used.

I'm packing things up and Mary Ellen Ashton from Clan Wallace says, "Where do you think you're going?" "I'm going home. I can't sit outside on a day like this with no shade." Her husband Peter says, "You will do nothing of the sort. You will turn your table sideways and you'll share our space." So, after clearing away the damaged frame, he and Jim from his clan, turned my table sideways and we formed Thompson & Wallace.

That's Peter and Jim in the background. I was back in business. I actually sold a button, that's all, but I sold a button after being moved sideways.

Once again, it got hot and with all the water on the ground, steamy. I was fine until it came time for the parade of tartans. In the past, I've always had a bunch of people to walk with me, but several regulars didn't come this year. I'm sure the weather played a part. So, it was just me walking with the flag. I didn't mind. I happily represent my clan and if I walk alone, I walk alone. Mary Ellen said people will stop what they are doing and stand 5-6 deep to watch the parade of clans. So, if I'm alone, it just means I'm more visible. Here I am after the parade. That's when I got the sunburn because they tell you to start lining up at 12:10 intending for the the parade to step off at 12:30 and it never does so you're standing in the bright sun.

I started taking the tent down at 5:30 p.m. I hauled what I could to the car and then helped Clan Wallace pack up their stuff. Cars were not allowed onto the field until 7 although that wasn't enforced very well. They had people driving golf carts but trying to get one when you were ready was difficult. Peter managed to get his car so we could start packing and THEN a gal in a cart came by and could ferry me and my last two bins, which I could not carry, to the car. I came home and left everything in the car except for my purse. The cats were very, very happy to see me. The AC was on so the house was cool. I took a shower and am so ready, now, for bed.

I am always glad I go even though this year, I lost my tent frame and I really cannot afford to replace it right now. I need to watch end of season sales for a new tent. The top is in perfect condition so if I can get the same kind, I'd have a spare top.

So, that's been my last 48 hours. My wrist seems to be better. I am so looking forward to a long sleep. I think I will take some aspirin and not wake up until 10 a.m., except to feed the cats so they leave me alone.

Beverage: English Teatime

Deb