This morning when I woke up my phone I saw that Mildred's Mom had Facebook messaged me saying "Just checking to see if you are doing ok. Saw there were tornadoes around Wichita Falls last night."
No, that is not a photo above of a tornado in my neighborhood. I saw the above photo this morning, on Facebook, via Elsie Hotpepper, with explanatory text saying "Insane close-range tornado earlier southwest of Vernon, Texas."
I did not hear the tornado sirens last night. I did hear an extremely loud brightly flashing thunderstorm which dropped big balls of hail.
Last night's storm did not last too long.
During the slightly more than two decades I have been in tornado territory I have never seen one like you see in the above photo.
On a March day way back near the start of this century I was driving towards downtown Fort Worth when I saw a weird green wall of clouds. Soon after seeing that I got a phone call telling me to abort coming to downtown because tornadoes had everyone in shelter lockdown.
I returned to my abode to experience the wildest storm I have ever been in. I thought the hail was going to destroy the house. The pummeling was so loud it felt as if the house was vibrating.
The next day I rode my bike into downtown Fort Worth, which had been closed off to vehicular traffic due to the tornado damage. It looked like riding into a war zone. And this was only an F2 tornado if I remember correctly.
My current abode is only a couple blocks south of the path of the infamous Terrible Tuesday Tornado, which was the most deadly and destructive in history til worse ones twisted in Oklahoma.
There is a small historical plaque in a small park adjacent to the southwest end of Sikes Lake dedicated to those who died in that Terrible Tuesday Tornado.
No tornadoes or thunderstorms are on the weather menu for this final Saturday of the 2021 version of April. I see a bike ride in my future for today....
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