Storms and Hills

I think I wrote earlier about how hard it is to predict the weather in these parts. Whatever seems to be coming our way "hits the hills" and most often, changes. So though we read the forecast in the morning, there's no guarantee as to what will actually be happening by afternoon.

I find this most fascinating in regards to thunderstorms. Last year Eric and I looked at a map about tornadoes across the country. It told where they occurred and most often (yes, Eric and I were spending our free and alone time searching weather maps on the computer; it really is fun for us both!). We realized that the place we live now is just outside the area where tornadoes occur. Supposedly, they can't happen here because of the topography (read: weather hits the hills and changes). Many homes don't even have basements. Then again, many things "supposedly" can't happen, but since God is the boss, well, who knows.

At any rate, watching thunderstorms here is awesome. We watch them come from miles away and watch as they change when they hit the hills. Many times, we get to watch the storms sort of happen next to us, but then die out as they approach our house (which happens to be on one of the higher hills in the area; when we look out our deck, we can see above the treetops for miles). Sometimes, we don't see them coming at all as the calm air hits the hills and develops into a storm pretty near right on top of us. Those bad boys are a little scary; we've had more than one time of running outside to get the kids in lickety-split because a storm picked up in less than three minutes. Those come with some of the loudest thunder I've ever heard along with constant lightening and enormous wind gusts. So, yes, we are out of the tornadic activity area, but because we are on the edge of a mountain range, we get these incredibly strong winds rushing every which way.

And of course, photos don't do justice (especially mine), but these are some of the best I have. In this one, we were watching a severe storm happen alongside of us. We could see rain and lightening and hear distant thunder. The really odd part was that is was sunny and calm where we were, as you can see from the sun on the grass and the house casting a shadow.
This one is illustrative of how the storm changes as it...can you guess?...hits the hills! This storm cloud looked normal until right as it got near our home. Then it broke up and spread downward, swirling every which way. I thought for a moment God had decided to put us on the tornadic activity map, but the cloud swept through as dense fog, and then brought the rain and storm from behind it.