All week, we watched as northern Iowa got hit by torrential rainfalls with daily reports of flood watches and warnings. Here in southern Iowa, we always seemed to be right on the edge of the storms all summer, resulting in just enough moisture to keep everything growing nicely. Otherwise, nothing "to write home about". Well, we knew it had to come sooner or later.

     "It" struck last night.

     Looking out the window and seeing the dark clouds in the northwest, I informed Norman. He checked on WHOtv.com and, sure enough, the county just NW of us was under a tornado warning. So, do we head for the basement? NO! Norman says, "Let's get in the van, boys, and go look for tornados!" And not wanting to miss out on the excitement, I joined them.

     Heading north into town, this is what we saw:

     Norman said that we must be right on the edge of a "mesocyclone". Now, since I am illiterate when it comes to vocabulary, I looked up this word (later, of course-ha) and this is what Wikipedia said:

     "A mesocyclone is a vortex of air, approximately 2 to 10 km in diameter (the mesoscale of meteorology), within a convective storm. That is, it is air that rises and rotates around a vertical axis, usually in the same direction as low pressure systems in a given hemisphere. They are most often cyclonic, that is, associated with a localized low-pressure region within a severe thunderstorm. Such storms can feature strong surface winds and severe hail. Mesocyclones often occur together with updrafts in supercells, where tornadoes may form."

     Soon, the tornado siren was blaring across town and dust and leaves were blowing all around. Norman decided that was enough excitement and quickly turned the van around and headed back home. While Norman and I kept our eyes on the storm, the boys hurriedly collected their perishables into a box to drag down to the basement if need be. We never ended up going down, but I did find it amusing what all they thought was indispensable... stuffed animals, piggy banks, a bag of prizes from the reading program, the Jetsons video, games, etc. But what made my heart feel really good were all the Bibles that they had collected from around the house.

     The system continued to rumble all through the night as it dumped 8" of rain. This morning brought reports of a tornado that had touched down 8 miles north of town, flooding... and a city ordinance to not drink the water for 36 hours. Officials said that the rain backed up the sewers and flooded the pump room at the city's Water Works. So, we're boiling water. Norman's sister also graciously brought us a case of bottled water that she had bought at Walmart this morning.

     Now, Mrs. Procrastinator needs to get busy and wash dishes that she was too lazy to do last night. This means heatin' up the water and doin' it the ol' fashioned way. Maybe I could just declare my kitchen a disaster area and get some kind of government funding for new dishes. hee hee

~Connie~