Wednesday, June 3, 2009

It's Been Oh So Long



I was realizing today just how long it's been since we had a good rainstorm here in Southern California. And how long it's been since I had a good posting on my blog. And as I sit here listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn wail on "Texas Flood" I'm picking up on the hysteria of our weather.

"One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain...and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath." Forrest Gump

If the skies above us are filled with anything except smog or blue sky...people get all freaked out. Hence the guy in the Australian duster and hat. I wonder how long he's been waiting to pull those out of his close. The clouds (by the way, the photo of the clouds is actually a color photo) were the most remarkable thing though, everywhere I went today people were staring up at the clouds or talking about them. As I was crossing through a city plaza one man stopped me and asked if I'd ever seen clouds like that, looking at me as though he needed reassurance.
"You know, they look like tornadoes." He said quietly.
"Excuse me?" I replied.
"Tornadoes. Do you suppose we'll get tornadoes?" He asked.
"I've never seen a tornado." I replied.
"Hm." He looked at me for a moment and moved on.
I'd considered telling him I thought it was the Apocalypse.


Though the real drama of the day was thunder and lighting. With the possible exception of a woman in the nearby city of Cabazon who was struck by lighting. She's expected to recover. Lighting strikes produced nearly a dozen spot fires in the local mountains and firefighters had to fight the blazes with air tankers, helicopters and fly firefighting hand crews called "Hot Shots" in by helicopter.

Meanwhile Stevie's still signing...
"Well dark clouds are rollin' in...man I'm standin' out in the rain."

3 comments:

ZombieKristina said...

I love the third photo, Rick. I could totally seen this blown up and hung somewhere awesome-like!

ZombieKristina said...

*see

toni said...

As soon as I saw the second photo I knew what day you were talking about. We were all outside saying, 'Look at those bizarre clouds.'
I've never seen anything like them.