Even though I live in Montana, I grew up in the Midwest. In tornado alley when we heard there was a tornado warning we didn’t take cover, we’d go outside with a camera and look for a funnel cloud.

The ones in bold are my favourites.

You know you grew up in tornado alley if…

The first thing you do if you hear tornado sirens during the day is check your watch to see if it’s noon…or run outside to look.

You don’t get worried unless the sky looks “green”.

You use the word “tornado” as a verb.

You chuckle at all the facebook groups called “I survived the ___ tornado.”

You might go indoors when there’s a tornado, but you won’t “seek shelter” for anything less than an F3.

You know what Doppler radar, Hook echo, wall cloud, and rain-wrapped all mean. And you can read the radar map.

You’ve never exactly memorized the tornado precautions, but you’ve heard them enough times that you know them by heart anyway.

Watching the weather is entertaining. And red on the Doppler radar is exciting.

The phrase “Tornado on the ground, take your immediate tornado precautions” sends exciting shivers up your spine.

You’ve seen photos/videos of tornadoes and said, “Wow, that’s a nice one!”

You can feel/smell tornado weather brewing a few hours before the storm actually begins.

There’s an odd feeling as though you’ve misplaced something if you make it all the way to June without a tornado warning near you.

You think people that live in earthquake and/or hurricane prone areas are crazy.

You know what people are talking about when they mention the “May 3rd/Moore” tornado and the “Greensburg/May4th” tornado.

You watch the movie “Twister” just so you can point out all the inaccuracies in it.

You know your weathermen by their first names. i.e. Gary.

When you hear the tornado sirens go off, you go outside to watch the storm and take pictures.

Most of the tornado video footage comes from everyday people with camcorders instead of from actual news/weathermen.

You’re sure there’s a giant tornado magnet hidden somewhere in Moore. And that there are smaller ones distributed throughout trailer parks.

You know that the four seasons are actually: summer, late summer, winter (if you’re lucky), and tornado.

You don’t consider it windy until the windspeed is faster than 30mph.

You are highly entertained by people from outside tornado alley when there is a tornado watch. (Hilarious!!!)

You learned that some other states don’t have tornado drills from this list.

There’s enough random stuff in your tornado shelter that you could live there for a year.

You stand under your carport or open your front door to watch hail and/or thunderstorms.

You know the difference between a basement, a cellar, and a storm shelter.

The weather is a completely acceptable subject for conversation, at any time, for any occasion.

Your local mall has “tornado shelter” signs posted.

It doesn’t bother you the next day to find out that your area was under a tornado watch the night before and you had no idea. Unless, of course, it caused you to miss some interesting cloud formations.

Getting to “play” in the basement/cellar/storm shelter numbers among your favorite childhood memories.

You keep matches, candles, and candleholders in more than one place in your house.

Your town will never get hit by a tornado because you’re between two rivers or because an old Indian legend says so.

You complain about severe weather reports that interrupt the TV show you’re watching.

You can get together all your most important possessions in 2 minutes flat.

When tornado sirens woke you up in the middle of the night…you rolled over and went back to sleep.

You’ve ever tried to reassure someone by saying that “if anything forms it will only be a little tornado”…and couldn’t understand why this didn’t calm them down any.

It’s normal for your area to be under a tornado watch for multiple days in a row.

When looking at houses/buildings you give them a “tornado survival ranking”. i.e., how big of a tornado it would take to destroy it. Also, if you are in a new building or house, you evaluate in your mind the best place to take shelter.

You’ve ever asked (probably w/ disdain) “Don’t they know the difference between a warning and a watch?”

You know what towns/cities a tornado normally passes through before coming your way.

From watching radar maps, you’ve heard of almost every small town in your state. And you know what towns are around them, but you have no idea where in the state they are.

You know what the freight-train noise sounds like from personal experience.

You laughed at everything in this list, but you also respect a tornado’s power. And you know that after it’s over, clean-up and re-building has to begin.

Please click on map to see a larger, more detailed copy.

Visit MT Fire Conditions
USDA Forest Service Map of Fires
NASA Visible Earth Wildfires over MT and ID
NIFC Site Report

Today: 08.03.07


One last edit: This smoke is probably from the Skyland Fire.

Yesterday: 08.02.07

You may be able to tell that today the smoke from area wildfires was not as ‘thick’ as it was yesterday. However, NW Montana still smells like a Pine-sol factory.

Blech!

Some snow facts from All About Snow

–Based on National Weather Service records for 1961 through 1990, Rochester, New York averages 94 inches of snow annually and is the snowiest large city in the United States. Rochester has a population more than 200,000 and annual municipal snow-removal budget of $3.7 million (1995 figures).

–Buffalo, New York, is a close runner-up in terms of U.S. large cities with the most snow. A 39-inch snowfall in 24 hours in early December 1995 cost the city nearly $5 million for snow removal.

–Almost 187 inches of snow fell in seven days on Thompson Pass, Alaska in February, 1953, according to the National Snowfall and Snow Depth Extremes Table provided by the National Climatic Data Center.

–Each year an average of 105 snow-producing storms affect the continental United States. A typical storm will have a snow-producing lifetime of two to five days and will bring snow to portions of several states.

–In the early 1900s, skiers created their own terminology to describe types of snow, including the terms “fluffy snow,” “powder snow,” and “sticky snow.” Later, the terminology expanded to include descriptive terms such as “champagne powder,” “corduroy,” and “mashed potatoes.”

–Practically every location in the United States has seen snowfall. Even most portions of southern Florida have seen a few snow flurries.

–Snow kills hundreds of people in the United States each year. The primary snow-related deaths are from traffic accidents, overexertion, and exposure, but deaths from avalanches have been steadily increasing.

–The greatest snowfall officially reported at the Phoenix, Arizona National Weather Service Office was one inch. That occurred twice. The first time was January 20, 1933. It happened again four years later on the same date.

–In the western United States, mountain snow pack contributes up to 75 percent of all year-round surface water supplies.

–The commonly used ten-to-one ratio of snowfall to water content is a myth for much of the United States. This ratio varies from as low as 100-to-one to as high as about three-to-one depending on the meteorological conditions associated with the snowfall.

–Nationwide, the average snowfall amount per day when snow falls is about two inches, but in some mountain areas of the West, an average of seven inches per snow day is observed.

Both of these are from Kalispell’s first snow of the season, which began at roughly 4:15pm this evening.

Note: Some of you may remember this
geranium from here and here.