Its almost 11pm. I am sitting at work because power at home has been out since 7:30. They had been predicting bad weather all day. At 11:00am, some coworkers and I went to the top of a parking ramp near the office and watched as the fronts moved passed. It was a spectacular sight, to see the different altitudes of clouds pass over and in some cases collide with each other. There were shelf clouds pushing a front from the west, colliding with a front of dark,whipped cumulonimbus clouds from the East. The air was heavy and wet, like it always is when the actual temperature is only a degree or two off dew point. It was also charged, with glimmers of high altitude lightning above the clouds and the occasional shimmer. It was to be a preview of things to come.
During the day not much rain fell at all and around 5pm the Sun came out and it started to clear up. We had dinner and sat outside sipping margaritas and watching as another line of dark moved acrossed the northern skyline. It was very dark and ominous. At 7pm it was prematurely dark and the severe weather sirens went off. We turned on the TV and watched the news reports, severe thunderstorm alert as well as Tornado warnings to the communities to the immediate north of Rochester. They kept switching between two camera views. One of downtown Rochester, that overlooked the Mayo buildings, and one from a camera at the station (KTTC) which was about 5 miles north on the northern edge of Rochester out by 55th ST NW. The camera downtown, pointing north was bathed in sunlight and it showed a dark, almost black wall just beyond downtown, I would say starting around 37th ST NW. The camera at the station, it was dark as night, the camera shaking in the 40+mph winds. As we watched the northern camera was rocked and suddenly drenched in rain and pelted with 1" hail. While the camera south of downtown still was bathed in sunlight, but as we watched you could see a dark line of clouds, like something out of the Lord of the Rings movie covering the orc advance move south. The camera panned west and you could see as long and massive line of shelf clouds moved south, obscuring the Sun. Underneath the black wall of clouds, you could make out another, more greenish grayline extending from the clouds to the ground, it was a literal wall of water, heavy rain.
At home it was calm until the dark wall engulfed us and the wind picked up, but we live nestled against the south side of a large hill, so the wind was not very strong. The sky and the air took on a tint of green-gray as the wall of rain hit. In the clouds ran the fury of the valkyries and the anger of long dead Norse gods and thunder and lightning lit up the artifical night. Nerdwife retired to bed as she will be running a 24 hour time course experiment and needed to get up at 3am. I checked the house and the windows and settled in on my computer to read the news and watch the weather reports.
At 7:30 the desk light flickered and went out, but my computer stayed up thanks to UPS power. I immediately knew the house lost power and shutdown. I wandered in the sudden and thick blackness of the house to the place where we keep the flashlights. I gave one to Nerdwife and went to check the house again and check on the neighbors. Other than being dark and having heavy rain the neighborhood was intact and fairing well.
The heavy rain lasted until 10pm, where it slacked off to a light to medium rain. But the light and sound shows continued (and as of this writing continue). I sat out on the front step soaking up the majesty of nature. It was a rare oppurtunity to be in the now. Everything was still dark all the blocks around us, but I could see light in the distance at the Apache Mall, good to know the Mall will always have power. By 10:45pm I grew restless and decided to take a short drive and to come in to the office to make sure the systems are still ok. As I drove I found that power was only out to the SW quadrant, power being on in downtown and north of 2nd ST SW. As I drove, emergency vehicles were blocking 6th AVE SW over the hill, the way I usually take towards work. I routed around to the next street down and I found they were all huddled around a massive tree (oak or maple) that had fallen. I could not see if it had hit the house near it or not, and I hope that no one was hurt. Debris litters all the streets. The tornado watch and severe weather watch continue and will do so until midnight.
Amazing and awesome.
I have pictures I will post of clouds (if they turn out, they were from my camera phone) from the parking ramp earlier, once power comes back. Time to head back home.
