Twister

I had a rather eventful ride home from Little League with Nomar Jr. They won by forfeit as the other team only had 7 kids show up. We loaned them a couple of ours (we had 13) to play a scrimmage game, but it was called due to lightning in the 2nd inning.

The storm was getting rather fierce, and the cloud formations had those characteristic low spikes of cloud that are a harbinger of tornados to come. (Those of you in the Midwest will know exactly what I'm talking about.) As I'm stopped at a stop light, a lightning bolt and thunderclap popped very very close to the car. It seemed instantaneous, and since light travels much faster than sound, it had to be close be seen and heard simultaneously. It was so loud that it startled me and Breck, and the lightning was so close that we had no sense of where it was exactly. It just lit up all around us.

About 3 blocks later, I'm at the stop light to turn into my neighborhood. As I looked to my left, I saw a funnel cloud that appears to be only a 1/4 mile or so away. It was not a forceful tornado at this point, more of a lazy rolling cloud formation but there was a very obvious counterclockwise swirl that got noticeably faster and tighter in the 30 seconds I watched it. When the light turned green, I exceeded the posted speed limit in the neighborhood to get home to the safety of my basement if needed. I turned the TV on and sure enough, the super duper Doppler 9000 radar was showing a tornado at the exact intersection I had just passed through.

As far as I know, it did not touch down anywhere near us though.