We ended up spending the night in Gillette, Wyoming Saturday and our timing couldn't have been better. We had just settled in, put up the satellite dish, when Craig made a comment about the dark clouds forming to the West of us. I, of course, jumped out of the truck and started taking pictures. Craig, who loves to be near any potential disaster, tuned our radio to NOAA National Weather Service and started listening to the details of the storm.
After taking my pictures, I went to empty our garbage can, and by the time I had walked across the parking lot, tossed our garbage, and turned to walk back, out of nowhere, the wind had picked up to about 25-30 MPH. This wasn't Kansas after all, but Wyoming? I've never heard of tornados in Wyoming. I got back to the safety of the truck and
listened as they were broadcasting Tornado Warning #401 . The wind was beating up on the trees and our satellite dish. We both thought, due to the circumstances, we should probably take down the dish. We didn't want it flying across the lot and causing damage to any unsuspecting bystander, or property. That left us without the Weather Channel to tune into to, and we were unable to receive any local stations on our TV using local feeds.Keeping our ears to the radio, we both kept a watchful eye on the sky and the clouds. The lightening and thunder started, but not much rain or any hail, which had been reported to be nickle size. We brought up the weather satellite on the computer and saw that the storm cell was moving Northeast of us. After a short period of time, the 
wind died down, the rain stopped, and the satellite dish was put back up.
wind died down, the rain stopped, and the satellite dish was put back up. Both Craig and I were born and raised in Northern California. I would guess that we feel about earthquakes probably the same way people in the Midwest feel about tornados.. But ponder this, the last earthquake I can remember that caused death or damage in California was in 2003, in Paso Robles. Already this year there has been 401 tornado warnings. If I have my choice, I'll take my chances with earthquakes..
3 comments:
Sounds both scary and exciting. What would you do if a tornado was barreling down on the truck?
Funny, I was thinking the same thing while I was sitting there. Our only option would have been to run to the store at the truck stop, it was constructed out of cement and probably our safest place to go.
Having lived with earthquakes, I would at least like to have a few minutes of warning...but niether event is a good one to experience.
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