midwest storms

many people have asked lately about the tornadoes near us and what was going on with that. this is a photo of the tornado from 5/10/08 that hit picher, OK, through seneca, MO (south edge of joplin, MO), and then on down through granby, MO.

this picture was taken from the parking lot of central school in baxter springs, KS -- about 10 minutes from picher, OK, area. i received this picture through email, so i'm not sure who should get the credit for the original photograph.

ireport has posted several pictures of this incident if you're interested in specific destruction of this area.

this particular tornado rated an EF 3-4 on the scale, which means it's pretty bad. i've not ever noticed a hyphenated number before, but i guess it could've changed levels of destruction as it traveled or something. if you're interested in tornado ratings, you can read the classifications.

what can i say? not a lot going on in tornado alley during tornado season -- other than watching the storms roll in and (hopefully) right on by. we had another tornado warning last night and could hear the pittsburg, KS, sirens going off. part of the my kids were already here and the other part arrived shortly before the sirens. i guess it was more fun to watch the storm from here!

last night to keep raven from being scared of tornadoes, i told her that's how a person gets to oz to see the wizard -- so she just went on about playing as if there was nothing wrong. no need having her crying as well as riahna, who was afraid of the thunder (and the cat and the dog and the train, etc!)