Looks like we might be in for a doozy. I’m right around the “P” in Pittsburgh, so right now it’s all north of me. But it seems to be moving in a south-easterly direction, and so things might get a little wild here tonight. We’re under a sever thunderstorm watch until 3am.
May it see the hills just south of Canton and turn east.
Hmm, southeast doesn’t look like the best direction. East would sound a whole lot better to me. Hope everything is okay.
We had an odd night here last night. Don’t know if it’s the same system though. The weather radio started going off and finally it announced our county was under a severe storm warning at about 5 AM. So I got up and got my stuff together in case we had to head for the basement and started closing windows—I could hear the wind coming up pretty good and it was really warm and humid, kind of spooky. Then the siren in town went off so we went to the basement—well, I did with my kitties following me. My husband, of course, saw no need to hurry which was extremely annoying. I felt like I was going to end up like Auntie Em calling for Dorothy or something. Well, it never sounded like much was happening outside but we sat down there until 6, when the radio said the warning was over a couple counties to the west of us. It didn’t seem like anyone was talking about our area so we finally decided to go upstairs and see what it was like. There was no storm as far as we could tell. But I was still scared so I called the police and asked them if it was safe to come out of the basement and it turns out the alarm accidentally went off! Can you believe that? They don’t seem to have any kind of “all clear” alarm here. So if you go down you never really know when you can come up again. And if the alarm goes off by accident then you just have to figure that out yourself. Honestly! I could still be sitting there! The whole thing seems pretty whacko to me.
Good luck tonight! Hope it isn’t too bad.
Izz, hope things have calmed down and you didn’t have too much scary stuff.
Cynth, that business of the false alarm is, well, alarming. I can see how if it keeps happening, it’ll be just like police with house alarms: The point would come when you couldn’t be bothered to figure out if it’s real, or not. That would be bad. Citizens should demand accountability for the accidental alarm, and as you say, there should definitely be some kind of “all clear” signal (that can’t go off accidentally, either..oh darn, that complicates matters more, doesn’t it). Anyway, until that problem is solved…just stay safe, willya?
Oh dear!!! You need a weather alarm radio . . . the automated kind that tunes to your local National Weather Service station. Not the kind you have to turn on to listen.
The monitor the NWS for alarms, then broadcast them. You won’t have to rely on the siren any more! They’re a truly worthwhile purchase, Cynth.
Lots of places have them–Oregon Scientific, Radio Shack. Just be sure to get the kind that listen on their own and broadcast the NWS alarm. It should plug in and have a battery backup, and should allow you to tune it to receive warnings for a several-county area.
Fingers crossed for you, Izz.
If you do get a weather radio, in this area, it’s recommended to not just set if for your county, but for the county WEST of you because that’s where all the dangerous weather comes from.
Cynth,
I believe your morning storm was our late afternoon storm. We had some fairly heavy winds and hail.
The storm was heaviest in the south. I heard the thunder but we were merely overcast. I knew something was wrong when our dalmation didn’t want to go outside. She looked out the door and ran back to her bed with her tail twixt her legs. Within 10 minutes the sky darkened and the deluge descended.
Izz - I thought you lived in New York. Hm. Next time I’m driving that way I’ll give a holler.
Izz and Missy, it looks like you have more weather fun in store for today.
yeah - we don’t need a weather radio - we have a “dog alarm” too. Buster is “gun shy” and any time there’s a storm I wind up with him in my lap. Which is a bit difficult, but at least it’s not Wyley. 55 lbs is easier to take then 80 lbs!!!
It ended up fine for the most part. It all started at about 1:30am, and was still going at about 6:30am. Lots of wind, rain, and lightning. The worst part was that it all woke up the kids, and so we were doing shifts trying to get them back to sleep (since they don’t all wake up at the same time 
). But there must have been at least 6 storms that went through…the first one would end, only to be followed very closely by the next, and so on. Thanks for the well wishes, everyone! 
Cynth, I can’t believe that they made a mistake like that! I would have been ticked off to no end, sitting in my basement for hours only to find out that I didn’t have to
FlyDood, you knew I was in Ohio, silly. Remember, I was going to come out to Kathy in PA’s house when you were bringing your daughter, I think, to something in Maryland or something (I think it was Kathy…now I can’t remember). I ended up having company, though, so I couldn’t get there (kids’ confirmations). But I am in the process of packing up to move to NY…that’s probably where that came from. We should be up there the 2nd week of July if all goes well.
And yes, we do have more in store for today, as well as tonight. This time it’s coming from the west rather than from the north, and so I do think that Missy is going to get a goodly portion of it as well. 
Whether we like it or not, weather is sure to be a topic much talked about this summer. Here in Indianapolis we have already had baseball size hail that severely damaged every roof in the neighborhood and broke house and car windows. It is good news, however, for the roofing companies that follow the hail damage around the country. Car repair shops are also going great guns. The downside is that you have to drive around in a car that looks like a sack of walnuts until your scheduled repair appointment several months away. I know one thing for sure: I am not going to visit my brother in Louisiana until late in the fall. I don’t want to get stuck in a hurricane traffic jam on the freeway and run out of gas. In the meantime I will try to duck as the tornadoes pass overhead.
Yeah, our dog alarm was definitely on alert. We live a bit north of Ann Arbor and go hit pretty good. One was scared- the other two just jealous of the fraidy cat in my lap- they’re all labs so it got a bit cozy in my chair. Wish they were a bit more awake when my husband’s truck was robbed night before last. They took his MyFi XM radio & a pack of gum. Went through my car too but I didn’t have any gum- just a silver Copeland, a 2G MP3 player & some jewelry- none of which was touched. Dogs slept like babies- grrrrr!
That’s not good.
Way down here it’s 100ºF and 100% humidity. When I walk out the door, I feel like I’m in Mississippi. Fortunately, I’m at work (in the library) where it’s cool and dry, always.
Glad you guys weathered the storm, okay, izzy.
I think we do have that automated type weather radio. Like it just comes on by itself and scares the heck out of you at any hour. But, the one we have is a plug-in one (my husband thought it would be good to avoid the battery problem which I understand) and I think we need a portable one that maybe has the batteries stored separately and that I would just routinely put on my basement pile or even keep in the basement.
Batteries seem to be a big problem for us. They run down or leak. It seems like you could spend your whole life checking on batteries. But I suppose if I stored them outside the radio, then at least they wouldn’t leak. We very rarely go to the basement so the portable wouldn’t get much use. If we used the type that takes batteries upstairs then I think we wouldn’t notice it if the batteries ran down. We would just think there were no storms. If I took the plug-in down to the basement, it might not work if the lights went out. I guess get a portable, store in basement and put new batteries by it once a year. I don’t know. I think we can know when we should go into the basement, it is the coming out again that seems to be the problem.
Oh, we used to have a dog that got so horribly scared at thunder and lightening. It was a terrible thing to see. We couldn’t seem to help or comfort him at all. I finally made him a little den down in the basement with some boxes and blankets and he would just go down there on his own during storms. It isn’t as loud down there. I go down there myself sometimes even when it isn’t really necessary if the thunder and lightening start scaring me!
My wife and I returned from San Francisco to Cleveland yesterday. Our original arrival time was about 7pm, just two hours before the time of that radar picture. We were delayed for 6 hours in San Francisco because the plane couldn’t take off from Cleveland due to the weather. We finally arrived about 2am. We descended through thunder clouds accompanied by impressive bolts of lightning all around us. We left SF at 85 degrees and 30% humidity and today in Cleveland it is still 85 degrees but 74% humidity. Home-Sweet-Wet-Home!
Mike