Posted By FarmerJ on June 3, 2010

The sky was quite the display of Mother Nature’s wonder and awe again this evening.  There was a massive thunderstorm to the north of us moving eastward.  The EBS radio was blaring constantly, alternating between severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings as the front made its way.  But, it was all north of us, so I wasn’t too concerned.

I was marveling over the cloud formation above, which was directly north of the farmstead.  The latest tornado warnings were for locations within 11 miles of us.  Close enough to pay attention, but no need to panic.  I continued to ooooh and ahhhh over this cloud ~ it looked just like a whale.  It was low, it was huge and it was incredible.

A few minutes later, Darling Husbie mentioned something about every active storm he’s experienced so far spins off to the southeast.  This storm was just to the northwest of us.  Great.  We’re directly southeast.

My whale cloud had completely disappeared and the formation you see above had immediately formed.  That got our attention.  Why does Darling Husbie have to be right about these things?

The radio is still blaring about severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings.  The prettiness in the roll cloud is being replaced with the look of business.

There’s a definite distinguishable rotation at this point.  The top of the clouds are moving to the south, and the bottom of the clouds are rotating back to the north.  Lovie, should we go to the shelter yet?

With the distinct rotation now, along with this piece that reached down to tap Darling Husbie on the shoulder [he was outside on the upper deck], he told us to be ‘on the ready,’ but we probably didn’t need to go yet.  If we were going to have to go into the shelter, I’d prefer to do it before all the rain and hail arrives!

I put the Mon-kay in her carrier ~ boy, she hates that thing ~ and the boys were told to pull their heads out of their video games.

Everything was probably going to go north of us, but how do we really know for sure.  It would be really silly of us to get injured in a severe storm when there’s a nice storm shelter just a hop, leap and a jump outside our front door.

The clouds were becoming massive and incredibly low to the ground.  That’s what kept amazing me.  I felt as if I could just reach out and grab a piece of it.

Nope.  It hadn’t cleared up.  This is a picture of the humongous wall of rain and hail that was headed directly for us.  There was literally no visibility beyond the front slough ~ you’d never know our alfalfa field was just beyond the slough.

So, the rain gushed.  The hail knocked, then pounded [of course, I'd just finished planting the last of our plant babies in the garden this morning].  And, finally, it all passed.

And, as with every one of these massive storms, behind it follows a most phenomenal sunset.  The winds are calm, the frogs are croaking, and it’s a beautiful night.

Spectacularly amazing, yes?  ♥

Categories: Plainly Ponderings
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