Weather

Well, tornado season is upon us once again. A lot of people freak out about tornados, but they have never really bothered me. I mean sure, a tornado warning gets my attention, but having grown up in tornado alley it has never been a constant worry. I figure if it is my time to go, it is my time to go. I had a totally different attitude about a different "force of nature" when I lived in Corpus Christi. I moved there in May of 2006 and immediately had to take a hurricane preparedness class at the university. Holy eye of the storm, Batman! Hurricanes? The locals all made no big deal of it, so I guess your reaction to the significant weather in your region is all relative.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago the weather was really bad. We had lots of severe thunderstorms, which I love, and lots of tornado warnings, which I do not. In all, we had six tornado warnings in my county, one of which was predicted to come into town from the south side. Thankfully it did not happen. (and thankfully I live on the north side of town.) We had lots of rain and even hail. The weather knocked out my satellite communication, so I put in a movie and "watched" the weather on weather.com. It beeps every time a new alert is posted, so I was feeling pretty informed. I checked the alerts each time they went off and one made me laugh when I read it. The first alert listed below seemed totally normal to me. The second one made me laugh. You be the judge.

#1...STORM HAZARDS INCLUDE... QUARTER SIZE HAIL... DAMAGING WIND GUSTS TO 70 MPH...

#2...STORM HAZARDS INCLUDE... DAMAGING HEN EGG SIZE HAIL... WIND GUSTS TO 60 MPH...

I have certainly heard of pea size hail, nickel and dime size hail, baseball and grapefruit size hail too. I have never heard of egg size hail, let alone hen egg size hail. Is it more descriptive to say hen egg? I think they usually forecast this as "golf ball" size hail, not egg size. And is using the hen description really necessary? Will it cause panic if your report simply says "egg size" hail?

"Egg size! Oh my, how big is that! Does he mean a chicken egg or a fish egg? What if he means ostrich egg hail! Are we even safe indoors?"

Okay, that may be a stretch, but the weather alert did give me quite a laugh on a night when most of the alerts were doing the exact opposite. Thanks for the laughs Weather Channel!