Mother Nature being a mother

There's a low pressure system spinning across the Panhandle that looks not unlike a hurricane. Not much to it right now, but I fear once it plows into that humidity, it may be the main event.

 

Being a few hundred miles downriver of Kentucky, we're feeling the pain too. The latest forecast crest for the Mississippi River in Vicksburg is 53.5 feet in mid-May, the second-highest on record. The historic 1927 flood was 56.2 feet on the gauge. Most of the Mississippi Delta communities are going to be underwater in a couple of weeks.
Oh, and there's a storm front with tornadoes and 100 mph straight line winds zipping through the same area right now. Good times.

 

That sucker stranded me in an airport for eight hours last weekend and just pelted the place I was going with quarter sized hail. Lots of southern Missouri is already flooded, and the system FB is talking about looks like it might be headed right for there.

Yay spring.

 

Tornados in north Alabama, 60-70 mph winds closer to Birmingham, trees down and power out everywhere. And the "big" system isn't due until after lunch.

 

Is this global warming or the Weather Channel sticking it in our noses 24/7?

 

Nothing like the weather radio going off at 4:45, 5:05 and 5:10, turning on the TV to see 100-mph plus winds are headed your way within the half-hour....

 

Start filling buckets with water because I will be amazed if you keep power.

 

Back when I was living in east Alabama, I remember waking up to the weather siren at 7 a.m. on the day before Thanksgiving one year. I flipped on the TV and there was a big red thing spinning in the middle of I-20 on the weather map. I lived about a mile north of the interstate. I heard the storm roar right overhead about five minutes later as I crouched in the bathroom door frame.

No damage. Didn't even lose power. I was lucky.

 

Apparently, Tornado Jim is headed for Tupelo.

 

The most scared I ever was during a tornado was in the Georgia Dome during the 2008 SEC basketball tournament. I looked up and saw the catwalks swaying back and forth and started hearing the bolts falling from the ceiling and bouncing off the metal temporary bleachers.

For about 5 seconds, I thought the dome's roof was going to collapse.

 

The roof was blown off my favorite pizza place. Now this means war.

 

Looks like tornado warnings back in Tupelo and Corinth.