Storm Watching: A Show of Nature

By Glenda Vosburgh
Published on March 1, 2007
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Storms brewing in the skies.
Storms brewing in the skies.
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Watching storms clouds gather.
Watching storms clouds gather.

Storm watching can be fascinating, the clouds provide many lessons — and they’re not always about the weather.

In our family, studying and understanding storm clouds — the whys, hows, wheres and whens of thunderstorms and tornadoes — is a skill taught by one generation to the next. Today, it seems to be a dying art. Storm watching is done differently from when my I first began the study of storm clouds.

When I was a youngster, my family lived on the outskirts of a small town in southwest Oklahoma — a part of the country so flat there was little to break your line of sight for miles beyond the rooftops of modest homes or the small Main Street district.

The town sat well within the boundaries of the region of the country we call “tornado alley.” Those of us who lived there knew what that meant. Severe weather was an accepted part of life — and because the terrain was so flat, you could watch the storms approach for hours before they presented any immediate threat to your safety.

Often on warm spring nights, ominous clouds gathered on the western horizon just about suppertime. After supper on those days, my dad quietly stood up from the dinner table, strolled out to our front yard and stood facing west — hands pushed into trouser pockets — where he quietly studied the approaching storm, sometimes for what seemed to me to be hours.

Most evenings, my two sisters and I joined him. We weren’t sure what we were looking for, but we tried to look as if we were seeing important things in those clouds, now and then glancing up at our dad to gauge whether it was time to worry.

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