Sunday, May 22, 2016

Waterspout to Tornado to Waterspout to Tornando

Back in January we had a cracker of a front pass through Sarasota. Not that I didn't know it was coming, I did. Cold fronts are a regular event here. Almost weekly at some times of the year. They typically roll in diagonally on a long southwest to northeast sagging line. This one was coming in late at night. The evening cooling tends to calm the associated T-boomers down on most occasions. Yadda yadda yadda, big deal. Severe thunder storm warnings are also a dime a dozen here and off to bed I go with a good book. I never saw the tornado watch that appeared at 12:45am. At 2:03am the cell phones start squawking I grab mine, fumble for reading glasses, and holy crap, what the hell going on? This thing didn't calm down, in fact it got meaner, a whole lot meaner. There were warnings galore lined up.