Whew dawggies!!! We had a fast and furious storm for about 15 mins. Strong winds, pouring rain, hail, thunder and lightning. Storm is over now. Got almost 2" of rain during that 15 mins. I had unplugged everything and had candles lit just in case and the electric didn't even flicker. I've walked around the house and everything looks ok. The plants I put on the front porch didn't even get wet. Tornado sirens were going off in many areas of town, but not in mine. Hope everyone faired as well as I did. Think the further north you went the worst the storm was. I did hear that a roof was blown off a house. Guess we will hear more about storm damage tomorrow. Rigo-sorry I missed you, I did meet your wife and she's a sweetheart. Kristy-So glad John pulled off the road. I couldn't imagine trying to drive during the storm. Lucy-You're right, I should have let the car get blown away. rofl I didn't think about that. But you know I did have a hard time deciding between the car or the plants to have the garage. The car won because since we've had accidents in both cars, we've lost our good drivers discount and the deductible is now $500. I didn't want to put another $500 out on that car to get hail damage fixed. We did get hail but it was only pea size, not the softball size stuff they thought might happen. Thank goodness. Kylie, glad you didn't get any damage and for sure happy we got some rain. Hugs Deb

Pam, In Oklahoma, our middle name is "bad weather". I think that tornadoes are my least favorite form of bad weather, although hail storms rank a close second. At least with hurricanes, y'all know it is coming and you even have a pretty reasonable idea a day or two beforehand where it will make landfall. You have wind speed estimations, elaborate storm surge maps and forecasts, etc. Up to a point, you know what to expect and about when to expect it. With tornadoes, it is their very speed and randomness, as well as their unpredictable nature, that makes them so scary. I think I could handle living in a hurricane-prone area better than living in a tornado-prone area. Much remains to be learned about tornadoes. I think the NWS does an outstanding job of telling us when the conditions exist for tornado development, but it must be our job to pay attention, heed the warnings, and be alert and aware and ready to seek shelter, because no one can predict the precise location where all those conditions will come together at any given moment and form a tornado---or a dozen tornadoes---or a hundred tornadoes. No one can predict if any specific tornado that forms will be a pretty mild EF-0 or a severely horrific Ef-4 or EF-5. No one can predict how long they will last, although the NWS does warn us of days when long-track tornadoes are more likely to occur. I am glad you and yours were safe when the tornado hit your village, and I know your husband and his chainsaw were greatly appreciated. Looking at the damage I'm guessing it likely was an F-2 or a very low-end F-3? It is wonderful y'all were able to help. A couple of years ago, a small community in the county adjacent to ours was hit by an F-4 tornado in February. It was the worst damage I've ever seen from a tornado because the county I live in doesn't have nearly as many tornadoes as other parts of Oklahoma, and when we have them, they tend to be small and fairly weak. Of course, we have only lived here 14 years, so maybe we just haven't lived here long enough to see a big one here. My DH was one of the dozens of emergency responders who spent the next 24 hours on search and rescue efforts, assisting the storm victims in any way possible. It warms my heart to see how many people respond and help, and every bit of that help is needed. Oklahoma City is hit by more tornadoes than any other city in the United States. Since records began being kept, there's been over 140 hit the OKC area, according to info on the NWS Norman Weather Office's website. The records date back to the late 1800s. We moved here in 1999, just a couple of months before the horrific 1999 tornadoes hit OKC-Moore and other communities. Prior to that, in our head, tornadoes hit people "out there" in tornado alley but I don't think my DH and I had thought they'd ever be a threat to us. After we saw the magnitude of the damage in the OKC area, which is a little over 100 miles north of us, we had a tornado shelter put in before spring of 2000 rolled around. Have we used it? Oh yes, several times a year. Have we had tornadoes near us? Yes, within our county and in the adjacent counties, but so far not any on the ground within maybe 20 miles of us. We've been lucky. Oklahoma weather drives us gardeners nearly crazy. It doesn't matter how beautiful your yard and landscape may be, how lush, beautiful and productive your veggie garden might be, or how heavily loaded with fruit, your fruit trees, brambles or berry plants might be---the OK weather can wipe it out in the blink of an eye. While tornadoes are a huge threat, we also often have very destructive severe thunderstorms, usuallly accompanied by high winds and often by hail in very large sizes that demolishes everything. We have derecho winds that blow through and flatten plants to the ground. We don't often have a lot of snow storms that cause damage, but very destructive ice storms are fairly common. I'd take a heavy snow storm over a light ice storm any day of the week, but we don't get to chose which one we get. Rain often comes in two forms here--either almost none at all for long periods of time, or inches and inches at once, often resulting in flash flooding. Gardening in Oklahoma is not for sissies! Earthquakes have always occurred in Oklahoma, but many of them are too small to be felt. We had a big one (big for us, but I bet folks from California would laugh at us because it was not big at all compared to theirs) last year that was felt as far away as Dallas. It was the first one I ever had felt here. Then, a couple of weeks later, I felt another one. Once was enough for me, and twice was too many. I'll be alright if I never feel the ground shake like that again. Bon, I don't know how many earthquakes Oklahoma normally has in one year, but over 1,000 were recorded in 2010. Of those, only 103 were reported as being "felt" by humans. The rest were just recorded seismically. I haven't seen 2011's numbers. I've linked a webpage with lots of OK earthquake data on it, including recent earthquakes. I cannot help thinking that the fracking procedures being used with oil/gas wells are contributing to our more frequently-felt earthquakes. Down in the D-FW metro area where fracking has gone on at a tremendous rate for about 10 years or so, they are having fairly frequent small quakes. I grew up there and never heard of an earthquake there, not even one from long ago, until they started fracking the wells. The weather here is supposed to be just absolutely gorgeous this week, and I am looking forward to accomplishing much in the yard and garden, but we never, ever can let our guard down. You cannot be a gardener in Oklahoma without being weather-aware and, in fact, every resident of Oklahoma needs to be very aware of the weather around them at all times, not just the gardeners. It isn't that we have more weather than anyone else, but I think it changes incredibly rapidly here and it can turn violent in so many ways...and does so with great regularity. It keeps life interesting anyway. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Recent Earthquakes in Oklahoma

Don't hit me! We felt a bit chilly this morning on Maui. I put on the thin sweat pants I keep here, and a hoodie. Now it's about 80F, but there's a stiff breeze on and off. Can't spot whales due to the chop. I am a little concerned about our house-sitter and Westie. Chicagoland is predicted to get at least 18" near the lake. More concerned about imminent delivery of Baby #2 for DIL in the city. Chicago deals with snow very well, but its side streets and alleys won't get any attention for a long time after the storm. DS is trained as a paramedic and has delivered babies, but I'm sure they'd both prefer a hospital delivery! alisande -- Thinking of your home delivery of your son. Our DGS (nearly 6) would be extremely interested should that happen. He's Mr. Science.

I don't mind it a little interesting, but I prefer that it stays just this side of dangerous. I love to watch lighting. I get disappointed when the storms just miss us... like they did today. We got rain and some wind gusts, but nothing serious. Today I was glad of that, really, because I was out and about. We don't have a basement either. I grew up in Ohio and as a young child was affected by tornadoes three times. I have vivid memories of being carried from our mobile home by a fireman down a hill and under the bridge of train tracks. When we came back, most of the homes on our street of the mobile home park were turned upside down. Ours was the only one standing! I was maybe 5 y/o. Still, it doesn't scare me. The opposite, I take it in stride. We had a friend of DS's spend the night once when the tornado siren went off. In the blink of an eye he was in the back of our coat closet in a ball, while the rest of us were just waiting and watching the news. We didn't even realize it, just looked around wondering where he went. Oh, it was too funny! He was 13! We were laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes! Never let him forget it. It's still funny to think about. He is a big, strong kid, too. Football and baseball player... the kind who's not afraid of anything. LOL!