Wacky Weather

Friday, August 21st started like any other August 21st, course it was my mothers and nieces birthday, AND one of Madames classmates birthday, later that day she was to attend a party for her. I hope all had a good day, it only happens once a year!
Madame and I transplanted many plants on this day, there were a few I had that needed bigger pots and a few I just received through the mail, ordered more than 2 weeks ago, boy! We were excited. Needless to say, as we were innocently transplanting and before we knew it something was amiss in the weather. Madame and I traveled from the back porch to the kitchen several times before we noticed....Sophia, the street smart stray, was acting weird. She was going in and out at a frantic pace, even jumping up on the deck to find the door closed, jump down and jump back up. Small thunder in the distance, maybe that was bothering her. Soon enough, while waiting too drop Madame off at her party, the outside became very darkened, almost as if it were night. A little rain came, but not bad.
Come time to leave we knew we had to dash to the truck but once we were outside we found it we still humid and NOT raining. Hump!
No sooner had I turned on the truck on....the emergency broadcast tone was sounding. "Is this real?" Madame asked, "No" However it seems to be toning longer than usual....
"This is a emergency broadcast system, beeepp...."
"There is a emergency tornado warning for my county, my town, and western Maine. Beeeepp"
"The emergency tornado warning is from 3:52pm to 4:15 pm, with a tornado watch in effect until 7:00 pm. Beeepp."
I notice the rain pick up and feel it's about 3:50 pm. Okayyy.....
"The tornado warning is 12 miles from (neighboring town) and traveling east, this is indicated by Doppler....."
"The tornado may or may not be on the ground, in the event you have a tornado, take immediate shelter......."
"This means, if you have a basement, place yourself on the western wall, sit with a blanket covering your head....''
''If you are traveling, do not take shelter under a highway......''
''If you are in a mobile home, evacuate immediately...... cover within a nearest ditch, if no ditch is around, take shelter under the strongest entry way of any shelter....." Would he add, hug and kiss your loved ones? Wow...I have never heard a emergency broadcast before, I told Madame we may be staying and to make the short run to the front door.

By this time I had backed my truck up to the front steps, it was raining in sheets and lightening every few seconds, Madame began to cry. I do admit, I jumped while unlocking the door, the thunder sounded and sounded LOUD. We phoned Dad, he was another town away and had not a lick of rain. He calmed Madame by reminding her he was from down south and witness a tornado come across his front yard.
Our trees bent over and looked pretty scary, the rain felt as if it was going sideways and within seconds all our windows has free standing water on the sills.

Madame noticed a waterfall on the stone steps at the back door, poor Tartarus, he was beside himself...never leaving my side and panting so badly I though he would have heat stroke.

Soon, most of the bad wind and lightening was over, here is what my driveway looked like just after 45 minutes.

The other half of the photos clearly shows the flooding to my front door and still lighting and thunder was sounding overhead.

It is suspected two tornado's set down in my area, highly unusual for Maine. This house was lifted and turned, it's in a abutting town to us.

And this is a photo sent to news channel 13 from a cell phone. Looks like a funnel cloud to me! It was in the next county over by this time. It hit my area fast, a lot of people felt unexpected.

I can say that I've heard a emergency broadcast now! Never before had I, unreal. C&G Design