At Last, Some REAL Spring Weather!

The past week or so has really been like Heaven, for weather. I don't say that lightly, because you all know how I feel generally about Colorado, but I have to admit (as much as it hurts) that Colorado has really come through with some good old-fashioned springtime weather recently. Last week and last weekend were HOT! I'm talking up into the 80s hot. That's a wonderful start. Then yesterday and today, we got......THUNDERSTORMS! Real ones, with thunder and lightning and hail! On second thought, I could do without the hail. Last week, we even had tornadoes, though I hesitate to mention it because that particular tornado practically destroyed a good-sized chunk of the town of Windsor, up close to where Heidi's parents live up in Loveland. Tornadoes are wonderful and terrible things. They're kind of like 14ers; some folks are obsessed with seeing as many as they can, as many times as they can, as closely as they can. We Okies fully know and appreciate their power, since we have them all the time in the spring and early summer. Colorado doesn't get them quite as regularly, and the Denver area and Urban Corridor don't see them much at all, so there's a lot more terror than wonder when they come around here. In fact, that's what makes all of this weather so noteworthy. Usually, the weather gets all broken up because it's coming over the freak currents generated in the mountains, so the storms we get are typically somewhat tame. It can't form the really awesome thunderstorms that I prefer until it moves further east, where the uniformity of the plains, with its convection currents coming off the flat, hot land force the air upward and build the giant thunderheads. In fact, I have been able to watch the lightning way off to the east the past few nights as the storms have moved away and built their strength.

While I'm talking about weather, I have two absolute favorite websites for weather: WeatherBonk, which provides real-time conditions tracking on Google Maps and lets you look at forecasts from various sources, as well as web cams from areas you choose. Then, for good forecasts, I typically go to The Source, the National Weather Service site. Of course, they take information folks like the National Severe Storms Laboratory, which is in Norman, of course. Always good to support the folks back home.

In any case, I'm going to enjoy this while I've got it...it almost feels like I'm back home. Thanks for reading along.