Tornadoes changed my plans - as they often do

Plans were to get back on track for writing my column on Wednesday this week — a tornado had other ideas.

First I procrastinated while finishing a novel, then I watched the late Albuquerque news.

The weather guy had picked up on radar-indicated rotation in a storm system north of Cannon Air Force Base, but his report was all over the place as to what was actually happening and whether or not a tornado warning was issued. My normal phone alerts weren’t going off for even a severe thunderstorm let alone a tornado warning, but the talking head was saying it had a hook signal.

I’ve always said Amarillo weather guys know their severe thunderstorm better than any other part of the country and I finally hooked up with John Harris of KAMR who was seeing the same things but had more detail and eventually people reporting conditions on the ground.

Finally, a full half hour after I became aware of the storm, a tornado warning was issued. National Weather Service, I’m not impressed. Even less impressive was local emergency warnings. The sirens sounded for a short time after the warning was issued in Portales, but went silent as the storm approached.

Soon I had talking heads on TV telling me to get into my safe place and I looked around and found the dog had abandoned me to take up residence on the bed. Maybe her safe place, but not ideal with a window in the room.

Power hadn’t gone out, but looking out my front porch to the north was a veritable laser light show. I figured it was only a matter of time before I was in the dark.

My computer where I write is just inches from a window facing straight into the storm.

While getting sucked out the window by a twister or having baseball size hail bounce off my keyboard might have made for a great column, I’m a chicken at heart and opted to delay my writing.

Later, tornadoes were confirmed on the ground northwest of Cannon and the storm slipped in between Portales and Clovis. The rotation diminished by the time it crossed U.S. 60 but the hail core of the storm stayed together and just clipped the east side of Portales.

Did I mention I live on the east side of Portales?

I had hailstones at my house that were 3.5 inches, or around baseball size. Hail was still on the ground the next morning, but all my windows were still intact. The one vehicle in my driveway was already a dimpled darling but the last two nights’ storms gave it even more character.

This spring I’ve subscribed to several storm chasing YouTube channels, including the world-famous Reed Timmer, who created the funky vehicle called The Dominator, and it’s been an epic year to watch with well over 100 tornadoes so far.

The two or three channels I’m following have been in or near tornadoes nearly every night. Unfortunately they weren’t on our storm Wednesday night. They were on Lubbock Thursday and I’m getting the popcorn ready and hoping we get a break locally.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]