Tornado Fun

Last night around 9:30 as I was enjoying some Olympic gymnastics there was a big storm a-brewin'! They had been monitoring it all day and when we watched tv they have a little map at the bottom of the screen that shows you which counties are under what kind of watch or warning. Anyways, we'd been under a flash flood warning and severe thunderstorm warning pretty much all weekend, but last night they interrupted the broadcast to show that we were now under a tornado warning. They said they'd only seen it through radar and that we were under the warning till 10:00. So I immediately get online because I never can remember which one is worse, warning or watch. Oh, but before I got online to check, I looked out the window just to see what was going on.

So I find out that the warning is worse, it means they've actually seen (either through radar or eyewitness) the event occurring, instead of just expecting it. Then it says "Do NOT look out your window to see the tornado coming (oopsie), go to a safe place now." Well I believe in being better safe (and maybe a little silly) than sorry. So I got the kids out of bed and we brought their pillows and blankets into the hallway by the laundry room, where we would have ran if anything actually happened. We made the best of it and had a little party in the hall, watching tv and laughing and joking.

Turns out there was no tornado in Clovis, at least not that I've heard about. But Roosevelt County just to the south of us was under the warning till almost midnight. So needless to say, I was up till way past midnight. Not because I really expected anything, but just to be on the safe side. We are still under the flash flood watch and expecting more sever thunder storms tonight, so there might be more excitement!!!

Anyways, we thought we might as well document our night, just in case we did have a tornado. Maybe we could get paid good money for tornado footage!


Here is our safe little tornado shelter. Can you see the severe weather map behind us on the tv?


Here it is up close in case your couldn't see it there. We are the red one (Curry County) on the left.


As you can see we weren't too shaken up about the whole thing, we made it fun. :)


Memories from living just outside of Tornado Alley.

PS - For those that aren't familiar with the area, we are less than 2 hours from the Texas/Oklahoma panhandles, the real tornado alley. Last March, as we drove out of town for Spring Break, Clovis was hit by a big tornado (13 touched down) that took out our bowling alley, damaged lots of houses, injured 30+, and supposedly killed an elderly woman (I think it was a heart attack as a result of the tornado). SO we have been hit before!