Cold, Rain Galore Plus Tornadoes

Today was an usual day. It was quite cold and later windy. A few days ago it was in the 90’s and 100’s but the last two days it was probably about 60 degrees or slightly warmer. Then it got real cloudy and I saw a few drops of rain. That lasted all of five minutes or so and it became sunny shortly thereafter.

However about five o’clock it started getting a little cloudy. We had the TV on and they were warning of tornadoes. That is very unusual for Southern California, but we have had a few the past two years. Well I could see the storm, and indeed it was a big storm with several high activity areas was moving down from north of us about 30 miles in our direction. We have a house next to Sun City, CA and the storm was headed straight there along with a couple of tornadoes. I was worried.

Before I had a chance to worry much the storm changed directions slightly and headed straight for us. There was a tornado spotted on the 15 Freeway about 15 miles north of us heading in our direction. It was not raining too hard at our house, but that changed rather quickly and then there was some lightening. Not too much however.

It rained rather hard for about twenty minutes or so and then slacked up. A resident here mentioned it was raining hard, but I said no, thinking of the thunder storms in Chicago – and this did not really compare to them.

We had probably a total of an hour at most of rain and most of that was not hard rain. Unlike some areas close by that had lots of rain and flooding. We were lucky no tornado hit us. Even though the ones we saw on TV fairly close to us were small, they did do some damage. I imagine winds of 75 – 110 mph, as those were would do some damage to our stucco house if it hit directly. Of course that is not nearly as bad as most tornadoes.

Those did overturn some box cars however.  Also a semi overturned as well as several accidents from the tornado on the 15 Fwy. That could have been caused by the heavy rain as well as the tornado.  There was a lot of flooding shown on TV and although we had less than two hours of rain it did rain elsewhere in So. California practically all day.

I canceled a meeting I had in LA tomorrow (today), it’s 1 am due to rain and storms forecast the next two days. Now watch it will be sunny and warm tomorrow. I was going to take some pictures of a friends business to put on his website. Last Friday I was scheduled to do it, but Thursday nite, like tonite, it rained hard over there so it was canceled. May is not a month for rains here in Southern Cal, but there is always an exception like today and last week when we have stormy weather.