Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Mother Nature forgot it's winter

There's a saying in Wisconsin that goes like this: if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes and it will change.
Though normally there are certain rules to this season thing. Snows in winter, rains in spring, about 2 weeks of hot in summer, and rain/wind in fall. Right?

Apparently Mother Nature was a little confused this week. Either that or she opted to play a trick on us Wisconsinites.

All that snow we had in just the previous pictures: Gone. Yep. 10 inches of snow, melted. Within a week. (I think it was actually less than that). The last few days have been in the 50's. Yesterday was actually 63. Umm....are you sure it's Jan? You sure it's not the Chinese new year we are on?

I think I will be sending her a map, as M.N. has forgotten her geography. See, Wisconsin is NOT part of tornado alley. At least, it's not supposed to be. We get very few tornadoes out this way, especially where I live since it's close to Lake Michigan. The coolness of the lake usually helps to weaken storms as they head toward us, and we normally just get thunderstorms. Not this time.

Yesterday afternoon I was watching the news very briefly and was informed there was a tornado warning for Walworth county (the county directly west of me). Double take. wh-huh? Yes, I said tornado warning. As in a tornado was spotted. in. Walworth. county.

It was a good thing I had decided earlier that day (before I even knew storms were supposed to happen....who's supposed to guess this stuff in Jan?) to spend the day at my parents' house. They live in Milwaukee county, luckily further north than where all this was happening. So as far as I knew, the kids and myself were safe. Who knew about our place of residence though. Now, as you may have read in my 100 things about me list, I am TERRIFIED of storms. That actually would be an understatement. I'm literally freaked out by them. So as you can imagine, if I had been home alone with 2 kids and a cat, attempting to get them in the basement while sirens were going off and a tornado passing overhead, yeah, I'd have lost my mind.

So I made sure to call hubby to let him know where I was, so he wouldn't worry. Then I continued to watch the news while grandma kept the kids busy. (thanks mom! :) ) Yep, the tornado was heading straight for my city. Oh lucky me. In fact, there was more than one. Again, I repeat, it's JANUARY. At least I knew we were all safe, but I was worried if I would have a house to come home to.

After all was said and done (thankfully by 6pm) hubby called me and told me our house is fine, we have power, and nothing happened in our neighborhood. Phew. Then watching the news, I saw where it did hit, and it's scary. It's amazing to think no one lost their life through all this, considering no one expects to deal with a tornado in Jan. Usually when the sirens go off, people think it's just a test. (at least in winter).

Wheatland in western Kenosha got hit the worst. And the city of Kenosha isn't too far behind. Very scary that it was so close.

What else does Mother Nature have up her sleeve? Snow in July?

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