Gone With The Wind

Gee, I bet many were wondering where I went!  Yes, I have been away from my blog for several months.  Honestly, I have missed my blog and tossing out my observations regularly for those willing to spare a couple minutes to hear what has popped out of my head and into electronic bits and bytes.  But there has just been so much going on that I feel that I just want to start making a comment or two, in hopes that it helps someone, somewhere.

Tornadoes are very rare occurrences in Southern California.  Typically, any funnel shaped objects are water spouts out on the water that, in their short life, rarely come to the shore.  Tornadoes, or twisters as many call them, hit with voracity in the southern central part of the United States.  While I would contend, as many do, that this is the consequence of human influence on our climate, it nevertheless is a seemingly frequent bunch of havoc sent to those states.

If you have never been around these storm cells, you cannot really understand the dread and yet tremendous sense of excitement associated with these storms.  The air is electrified with ions and the sky often turns a particular shade of green.  It was extremely sad to hear that three highly qualified meteorologists (and storm chasers) perished in a recent tornado, but these natural phenomena are so unbelievable that you can see why they chose such a dangerous career.

Southern Californians probably don’t have “be ready for tornados” on their preparedness list, but tornados do remind us all that Mother Nature is quite powerful and unpredictable and being prepared should really be something that is as regular as getting a hair cut.

So, we are not in Kansas, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t aware that things can literally be gone with the wind – unless we prepare and make sure it doesn’t.