Texas | Fun Weather

I grew up in South Florida, where our daily, summer thunderstorms would be considered severe weather in most other places. We certainly had our share of close lightning strikes and a dozen or so tornado alerts. When out fishing, it wasn't unusual to see waterspouts churning over the ocean on any given day.

For the time I lived in California there were no thunderstorms or severe weather alerts of any kind, I started to miss the drama. There's a nice adrenaline rush when the sky turns that particular shade of gray-green, the wind kicks up, and a bolt of lightning hits out of the blue, close enough for the thunder boom to catch you off guard before you have time to prepare for the sound.

We just had our first Texas tornado warning. This time, it was more than a red bar on the weather channel; it was the radio bleeping with the emergency broadcast alert, followed by our local air raid siren going off and screaming into the darkening evening.

Other than a few large branches scattered on the street, our neighborhood was spared. In celebration of our return to the threat of severe weather, here's a picture of our full national weather service glory.