When I went out on the deck after dinner to see how bad last night's storm damage was at our house, my husband called out the door, "Do you see anything that looks like a tornado?" Nope, I didn't see any tornados. What a strange question. Or was it?

Within minutes after the local news had told us that the severe weather was over for Tuesday, the weather team came back on to announce that they were tracking tornados in the area. Some were in the county southwest of us and some were in the county northwest of us. Both were on the move. A slight change in direction, either one could easily hit where we live. The ones to the west in Kansas were more concerning than the one to our north in Missouri. This all came after 24 hours of non stop thunderstorms and heavy rain that had caused massive damage throughout the Metro. This time some of that damage hit home. We lost one of our mature trees that I loved. Plus our yard is starting to resemble a swamp with mud where grass used to be and large standing puddles that resemble mini lakes. I've never seen anything like this at our house before; not even back during the great Midwest floods of '93: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1993

Around dinner time, we were finally getting a much needed full hour's break in the rain. More severe weather really was not expected. BUT surprise!!! The weatherman was wrong. Fortunately, the unexpected tornadic activity around us never reached our county. The rain did. Once again, we were assaulted by another downpour. More heavy rain is expected for everyday for at least the next 10 days. What a wet Spring this has been. Obviously, I wasn't shooting digital back in '93; so I can't quickly access those old photos on my Server. However, I do remember a similar weather pattern setting up that Spring and continuing throughout the Summer.

As a side note: our unusually cool Spring this year has changed the normal rhythm of many things in Nature. As seen in this photo, our Silver Maples are about a month or more late in leafing out. Most of the seedpods had to drop before the baby leaves even got started. Instead of having their normal, full, green, Spring foliage, this is how the local maples looked well into May: https://pbase.com/britestar/image/169152288 I don't think I've ever seen a year like this before.