We've had the craziest weather this month! Like normal, we've been praying for moisture, or as was pointed out in the local newspaper, we should pray for actual rain, not just mist. And those prayers have been answered. We have had a lot of rain, but with that rain we have also been getting the companions Wind and Hail.
On Sunday at church, I came up the stairs from dropping the boys off to their Primary classes and saw Curtis standing at the east door, looking out. He said, "These clouds remind me of the tornado clouds in Missouri. The colors and the swirling." As we watched, and others gathered, we saw a funnel cloud snake its way to the ground. We were all stunned! We don't get tornadoes in San Juan County! But I saw it with my own eyes. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get to get my phone out and take a picture of the first cloud, but then another one started to form. So I grabbed my phone and clicked away.
Can you see that greenish/blue tinge in the clouds? That's the color Curtis was talking about.
Once when we were visiting we had some really bad weather in Missouri which is in Tornado Alley, but I've never seen a tornado and never thought the first one I saw in my life would be in Monticello. Wow!
This one never came close to touching the earth, it just got strung out horizontally and got thinner and stringier….
This is a picture I found on FB of the first funnel cloud that came down. This was taken by a lady from Colorado who was driving west on 491 towards Monticello so it's a reverse of what we saw looking east, but its the same funnel cloud. It looks to me like it touched down or came very close to it.
These are screenshots of the weather app on my phone that shows the lightening strikes in my area. You can see that some days were a little crazy. The blue dot is my phone and there were a lot of strikes that were incredibly close. In fact, there was a strike that took out our electric transformer, as well as damaging our phone, computer and tv. We had unplugged them, but the power came in through the phone line. It actually melted the phone line into the jack and the whole thing had to be replaced. So frustrating to have no tv or computer functional. I can live without a landline phone. ;)
I love these two notifications from the weather app. I had to laugh when I saw them! "Lightening strike 0 miles from your location. Make your move to safety now." I thought they should say, "Lightening strike 0 miles from your location. Are you still alive?" LOL
On the 15th the kids and I ran to the library and while we were in there a crazy hailstorm began. It was so loud in the library due to the hail on the metal roof, that the librarian had to yell to ask me my name to check me out. We decided to stay put until it was over. This was what we found when we were able to leave….
That is hail in Soren's hand. It's the biggest I've ever seen here. (This was at home)
This was a pile of hailstones that came off the roof at the library and piled up
hailstones at the library
a pile of ice balls!
There was no way we were going to go out into that pounding hailstorm. Ouch!
These next pictures show the damage to my garden… sad.
pumpkins leaves are tattered...
tomatoes are torn up really bad, poor little plants.
I'm hoping my garden will recover in time to produce something.
This is my north flower bed. Those plantain leaves got shredded. Sigh.
Curtis said, "Well, we pray for rain, and don't stop to think what comes with that." Now I know.
The other thing I've noticed is that around here, we don't get warm rain, so when rain comes the temps drop. We have had a relatively cool summer and my garden isn't growing all that well, even though its' had rain. It also needs SUNSHINE!
