Weather Geek

Ok..I have to admit something. I didn't realize when I started to blog that this would become the 'true confessions' of Suzanne Payne. Well, there's something about myself that I think might be a little weird.
I'm a total weather geek.
There.
I said it.
I think I have a problem.
How many of you WANT to watch the radar when there are severe thunderstorms coming across your state? *I'm raising my hand*
How many of you WANT to chase a real tornado? *raising hand again*
How many of you actually get secretly excited when the Weather Channel puts your area in a 'severe weather threat' red zone? *me again.*
What in the hell is wrong with me??
Am I not smart enough to be scared? I think if it came right down to it, and a tornado was bearing down on me...I think I'd be scared, but if it's not coming right at me...yeah..I want to watch it.. take pictures or video of it and stare at it's crazy, magnificent power. What is that anyway, a death wish?
Murfreesboro, TN April 10, 2009 The 'Good Friday' Tornado

The tornado in this picture is the one that chased my best friend into her house, and took out two of our teachers' houses at school and  our assistant principal's house too. I'd never known so many people effected by one tornado before. It stayed on the ground a long time and destroyed a lot of houses and businesses. It was an EF-4.

I've had more than one close encounter with tornadoes. The city that I live in has had more than one direct hit from tornadoes since I've lived here in 1984, when I started college here. I looked it up and I was surprised to find that 4 of the top 10 most costly tornadoes have been since  we've lived in our house. So I'm not just paranoid.
We've had direct hits in 1997, 2001,2002,2003, 2009, 2010 and just had another one in May of this year. I'm glad I'm not going crazy...I was beginning to wonder.
TN has  been moved into a secondary tornado alley, so to speak. It'll get really warm here and then a cold front will sweep in out of Canada and WHAM! Tornadoes, hail and thunderstorms.
Like...today...

Started out warm and sunny...partly cloudy...low humidity, light breeze...sheer perfection as far as weather goes. Then during the day, clouds get darker, wind picks up and by the time we're out of school, we've got hail the size of golf-balls breaking my daughter's driver's side mirror on her SUV...really??? I had to drive straight through it, but lucky me, I missed the hail core.
by Jo Ver Mulm
Normally, I've heard about weather trends and the forecasters are really good at giving us days in advance about a front that's headed our way that will drop us so many degrees..almost 40 degrees difference when it's all said and done. But this storm came out of nowhere. I haven't been watching the weather or too much TV lately. I've been reading on two different books and been on the computer rewriting my MS.
Yesterday, I had the bright idea to change a chapter when a pivotal moment happens and it snows.  I decided to make it a little more exciting to put a thunderstorm instead and hit somebody's house with a tree...or I might even knock part of their house down. I haven't written it out yet, so I won't know what happens until I start to actually write it. I thought it was a little odd that I would think to do that. You know..freak thunderstorm in the fall and then it actually happened in real life. It's October here in reality and in my MS it's November when all this happens. I also heard that October and November are our new secondary storm seasons because of our temperature extremes in the fall now. So there you go...I had the idea and was validated by our local meteorologist.
I am such a weather geek.