27 April 2011 Too Late To Bunker In

      At 0425, the Morristown TN office of the NWS issued a special weather statement.  The outlook is for severe thunderstorms this morning followed by the coalescence of scattered super cell thunderstorms into a squall line that is expected to generate large diameter hail and some long-lived tornadoes.  Our area of Tennessee is included in the alert area. 

            By 0830, there have already been at least 5 tornadoes on the ground in an area reaching from Alabama to Indiana. 

            I drove into town this morning with 20-30 mph crosswinds.    The high number of tractor-trailers was rather worrying as the wind was pushing both lanes of traffic together. 

            I’d checked the regional radar prior to turning off my computer at home.  I attempted to check it again when I arrived on campus but the continual connectivity problem in Hutcheson Hall prevented me from connecting to the university wi-fi net.  That really should be repaired.  No classroom dedicated to hard science should be a net dead zone. 

            I wrote my last Volcanology exam this morning.   In retrospect, I learned a bit from the class, and made some connections to other physical sciences.  I might have studied a bit harder but I don’t feel that I wasted the class time. 

            I have two more Roman history classes, today and Friday.  I chose to skip today’s class so that I am home when the squall lines approach.  I’d prefer not to be on one of the blind-curve reaches of the road home during a thunderstorm.   I’ll skip Friday’s class as well.  I’ve actually enjoyed this class quite a lot.  I’ve made my excuses to the professor and thanked him for the opportunity to audit. 

            It feels good to be done with this semester.  I may get to sleep in a bit later after tomorrow – Thursday mornings require hauling the trash to the road. 

            I bought two sandwiches at Earth Fare for dinner tonight, hedging against power loss.  I bought a gallon of strawberries at Larry Thompson’s produce stand as well.  We’ll freeze some for the winter months.  The rest will be consumed by week’s end.  These are wonderfully sweet berries, locally grown for consumption here.  The growers had some hail damage earlier in the week.  For that reason, I bought a bit more than we needed.  The storms today could wipe out the rest of the crop. 

            Now there’s nothing left to do today but wait out the weather.  Our proximity alarm, Loki, seems to be registering any major disturbance as of yet.  I think I’ll nap until she begins pacing.   It could be a long night or it could be just a bit wetter and noisier than normal.