Severe Weather Week

It's Severe Weather Awareness Week in Wisconsin this week. We were supposed to have a mock Tornado Watch followed by a mock Tornado Warning this afternoon. They had to postpone the event because, of course, there is a risk of severe weather and the experts were afraid that people would just assume it was the test when it was supposed to be the real thing. How ironic.

I love storms. I didn't always, though. As a child, I was terrified of the threat of a tornado. I think part of it can be traced to the fact that Mom's immediate response to the sirens going off was to make a big deal out of it and get us all down into the basement. We even had an area in the basement where we would roll out our sleeping bags to spend the night down there if the sirens went off overnight. There could be no sleeping, though, not when we had to be on the alert for our house to be sucked off the ground from above us at any second.

Getting into the basement was always an ordeal. We grew up with a veritable zoo in our house so all of the critters had to be found, captured and transported to the basement with us. Dad had an old, black radio that he took downstairs so we could monitor the reports; waiting for the all-clear to be given.

I'm convinced Mom had a deeply rooted fear of tornadoes. I'm sure it was somehow tied to the time she was forced to huddle in the basement alone with Debbie because she hadn't been able to wake Dad. She found Dad after the threat had passed, still soundly sleeping even though the storm had torn much of the roof off the house.

Mom passed that fear on to me and, as a child, I seemed to be tuned to the sound of the sirens; ready to burst out of my bedroom and to the basement before it had reached its crescendo. It was, "Every man for himself," and I intended to make sure I was safely in the basement even if the girls had to be pushed out of the way for me to get there quickly.

I don't really remember when that fear disappeared; replaced by a fascination storms. At some point, though, I went from racing to the basement to racing outside - hoping to see a funnel cloud. I became part of an informal group of amateur storm chasers in college. None of us had any training in Meteorology nor any clue of what we were doing, but we would pile into a couple of cars and drive around Southeast Missouri during severe weather outbreaks in hopes of seeing massive thunderstorms or tornadoes. We were actually pretty successful and saw a number of funnel clouds and tornadoes through the years.

I lived on the far West end of the twelfth floor of the Towers West dorm. My window gave a great view of approaching storm fronts. The sight of a massively building front was an immediate cause for joy and a race to the cars to get away from Cape Girardeau to where we could see greater distances in all directions. I was no longer afraid.

I still love storms. I married a weather geek. Diane had actually started taking coursework toward a Meteorology degree before submitting to the call to become a teacher. She still loves weather events and remembers much of what she learned. She's one of those "Trained Weather Spotters" you hear about when the tornado sirens go off, and has actually reported a funnel cloud right in North Prairie.

So the boys grew up with two people who love to watch storms and they, too, love to go outside to watch when severe weather hits. Our rain gear is in the garage all Summer; ready to be pulled on in a moment's notice so we can stand outside watching the lightning flash all around and the wind blow the rain horizontally.

As I scan the surrounding countryside; still secretly hoping to see another funnel cloud or tornado, I lament all of the great storms I missed as a boy because I was cowering in the basement.

Of course, there's no way Mom would have let me go outside to watch anyway...