Storms 2012 | Jwj Photo blog

Sometimes a good rainfall requires enduring a little bit of wind, but I dont think any of us figured it would last as long as it did Thursday afternoon, nor get as strong as it did. Missy and I photographed some of the wild looking clouds before it hit, from the railroad overpass on Hwy D….earlier in the day, it was reported that a cloud of hail was on approach to the area, so I photographed it from the north side of the west overpass….

…and then a bit later in the day, as the more severe storm began approaching the area, Missy and I drove over to the railroad bridge on Hwy D near the police station and photographed it on approach to town…

When we saw this, I wondered if I was watching a wall cloud form in front of me and began thinking maybe it was time to skedaddle back to the house, but I decided to stick around a few extra minutes and see what else would happen…

I kept moving back and forth about twenty feet, wished someone would cut those trees down so the view would be much clearer….

…then moved a little further up and had a much better viewpoint, but still wasnt sure what I was seeing here…

…but as it was, it turned out to be a roll cloud…not a wall cloud…and roll clouds occasionally are out in front ahead of some severe storms…this I learned from one of my rockhound friends who is also a storm chaser and meterologist…she said they can be quite scarey looking, and believe me this one was….

…and it became even more pronounced as the storm drew nearer…you can see the storm behind it gathering force in the next photo…

..and at this point, I decided the storm was very near and I headed home…and the wind was picking up dramatically, as seen in the next photo of the flag flying at one of our factories on the north side of the interstate…

After arriving back home, at times Missy and I headed for the basement when we saw the trees bending halfway to the ground, knowing that we were getting strong winds then…and I know we went to the basement three times only to return three times as well…my neighbor Glenn, across the street, was braver than us, staying on his enclosed front porch with a birds eye view of everything in front. In fact, he told me the next day that he saw the big limb rip off my front yard tree, fifty feet up, and come crashing down during the height of the storm, landing in the middle of Elmont Road in front of my house. Luckily no one was driving thru at the time it came down and a few minutes later, he observed some guy stop in the middle of the road and move it to my sidewalk, getting soaked in the process…the way the rain was being blown at force, horizontally down my street, I would imagine he was soaked the second he stepped out of his car…here is the limb, seven inches around at the base of it….

..and on impact, a limb tore away from it and skittered across the street on the wet surface and smacked Glenn`s white car as well..doing no damage luckily….and I lost a few smaller limbs as well that blew down the street a little ways as well…

…while just a few blocks away, four trees came down in the front yard of St Anthony`s Church on Springfield Avenue….

..and our city park across the street and a few blocks north of me, lost a few trees as well….this one is fairly young age wise and blew right over…

…while this one, an older tree in a line of older trees, had two big sections ripped off the large trunk by the winds, also along the Springfield Avenue side….

…and a couple of hours later, we were graced with a fantastic sunset following a horrific storm….I caught it while walking Missy at the City Park….

…and then went down our street a few blocks to where the new Elmont Road Bridge crosses I-44 to see even more of the pretty sunset with spectacular rimlighting of the clouds…