Sunday, July 4, 2010

A Wild Night




Where I live "a wild night" usually has nothing to do with night clubs, drunken orgies, or mid-street shoot-'em-ups. It most often refers to Mother Nature doing another one of her famous numbers on you. Just before dusk yesterday we had a storm system slip in from the west and give us quite a time for a while. My internet is by satellite and when we get a big storm I usually lose it at some point. But before it went blotto yesterday I could see on the weather map that we had tornado activity just west of me. I watched it for a while as it got closer, but then it slid southeast and disappeared. So far so good.

We got a little hail, a sudden, brief downpour, and then it began to taper off as it moved east. In less than a hour it had passed through and things got back to normal— although exactly what "normal" is on the High Plains is hard to say.

These violent, sudden storms can be beautiful and awe-inspiring, but they can also be pretty scary. Sometimes living on the plains can be a lot like sailing in a small boat: mighty big ocean, mighty small boat. It kinda gives you special understanding of what "helpless" can mean.

But, oh, the terrible beauty of it all!

4 comments:

Home on the Range said...

Beats the heck out of neighbors shooting fireworks until after midnight.

Beautiful photos. I could sit out and watch that kind of sky all night.

Miz Minka said...

Ditto that, both statements. If I may, I'd like to "borrow" one of those sky images for desktop wallpaper. It makes me relax just to look at a photo of that kind of sky. You're very fortunate to be able to watch it in person!

Rio Arriba said...

MM, you may of course "borrify" the pic.

B., Sometimes I go out late at night and just stare up at the sky on a clear night. There is no (as in NONE!) ambient light here and the nighttime sky is nothing less than awesome. Talk about feeling small!

BobG said...

Interesting storm.
I love the framing and composition of the last photo; nice work.