Have I mentioned the weather around here is nuts?
OK, fine. But this is the first time I’ve mentioned it this week.
One day it’s summer, the next day it’s winter. Case in point: Thursday, it was 85° and we had the A/C on. Friday afternoon the thermometer was stuck on 43° and we had the heat running.
Some of you have left comments asking how we plan for such variable weather. The answer is simple: we don’t.
How can we, when there are such wild extremes? A lot of people pack up their winter clothes and swap ’em out for summer gear come March or April. That isn’t feasible here; we’ve got to have options for anything and everything. Shorts and a t-shirt on Thursday, a heavy coat and gloves on Friday. That’s just the way it goes.
Today was especially bizarre. It started out foggy, drizzly, and cool. By early afternoon we hadn’t seen so much as a hint of the sun. And then, we got the following alert.
They’d been talking about an enhanced risk of severe weather, the kind that can produce large hail and tornadoes, for a couple of days, but it just didn’t seem likely. Typically, the recipe for severe thunderstorms calls for a dash of sunshine and a heaping tablespoon of warm temperatures.
Well. You know how dramatically the weather can change from day to day here? That can also happen from hour to hour.
I’ll admit, that weather alert freaked me out. Tornadoes are scary. One minute you’re minding your own business, going about your merry way; the next, you’re dealing with flying monkeys and Munchkins. Then, there was the fact that Tara finally got all her raised beds finished yesterday, and everything planted. It would suck if Mother Nature ruined all her hard work in one fell swoop.
Luckily, no warning sirens went off. While the squall line that passed through brought copious lightning, 60-mph wind gusts, heavy rain, and hail, we didn’t have to hunker down in the basement. And the vegetable starts are fine. As for the hail, we’ve seen a lot worse.
So, I guess you could call it a warm-up for storm season. I’m sure we’ll see worse than this in the next couple of months. We ended up with well over an inch of rain today, much-needed moisture that should help put a dent in the persistent drought conditions we’ve been experiencing.
Mark My Words 
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