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Tornadoes in Charleston

Tornadoes in Charleston

What a crazy bit of weather we just had in the Two Rivers! Tornado watches and warnings, oh my!

The weatherfolk were going crazy with anxious excitement: low pressure! wind shear! look at that speeds! wow! let’s look at our exclusive super duper doppler again! now with more color! yowzers!

Breathless excitement. Apparently Charleston gets weather like this about once every twenty years or so.

We stayed away from windows hereabouts, though the weather didn’t feel anything like the tree-twisting storms I recall from the few years we lived in Kansas in my youth. Strangely, we were living in Lawrence, Kansas — I was in first grade, maybe — when a fairly rare weather event happened there: a 1981 direct tornado strike on the town itself (normally the twisters hit around the town, not on it). I’ve found a recent video interviewing folks who survived it, including a worker hiding in the K-Mart that was partially destroyed, killing 1.

Ah, Kansas.