A Conclave of Cloudbursts
Aug 9th, 2009 by Jennifer Lynn
Our electricity keeps pulsing on and off and I’m tapping away on a tiny battery-powered notebook keypad while rifling through weather updates on the web. An earlier report had issued a possible tornado watch in a county a bit south of here. A tornado!
One passed over us two weeks ago. That day was wet and sticky and my brother stood outside on his phone, trying to gauge where the rotating clouds were headed in the glowing mauve sky. His friend on the line said, ‘Dude, may want to get in the basement. A tornado just whipped over my head.’ The funnel touched down 20 miles away, desecrating a handful of shops.
Never used to get this type of stuff in my little corner of the world but these summer-y storms, all five hundred of them, have been pretty severe. Thunder is shaking the room right now and sheets of jagged lightning unspool all over the sky like dirty veins; tremendous, ululating spasms of energy.
St. Elmo’s Fire.
The rain intensifies. I tuck a tartan blanket around my shoulders and settle in with a glass of honey wine to watch the storm develop.
=^..^=
