Light Shows & Funnel Clouds

From my parents' front porch, you can see a storm coming for miles.

It's one of the distinct advantages to their location -- crystal clear sunsets uninhibited by hills or trees ... and foresight.

The particularly cool thing about their location is that you can also see what's termed the Big Sioux Divide. There's a strange effect right there that seems to make most of the major storms go either north or south of Sioux Falls, or more impressively, split in the middle and go both directions. I've seen that very phenomenon from that porch.

But I digress.

Growing up, thunderstorms were just a part of the summer. Two or three a week, some of which produced rain and a lot of which didn't. It's the prairie thing, seemingly there just to keep farmers on their toes -- will this help or should they be ready to extinguish a lightning-sparked fire?

The true fear-inspiring facet of these storms, however, is the wind that comes with so many of them. When I was younger, these winds terrified me to the point of having things ready to go down to the basement at a moment's notice. On one particular occasion I even corralled the whole family into the basement bedroom, right down to the dog and cat.

I think my parents would tease me about that more if a town some fifty miles away hadn't been destroyed by a twister that night. My fear wasn't groundless.

It did evolve, however, to a more healthy respect for the storms. A few years later, I stood outside with Dad and watched a funnel cloud dipping lazily out of the sky just a mile north of our house. It never really touched down -- just dropped low enough to whip up some dirt before retreating, then doing it all over again. I was fascinated ... And calmed by the transparent, non-threatening clouds directly over my head. Good ol' divide.

When I moved to Wisconsin, I discovered three things:

1. The wind is rarely as threatening.
2. The storms seem to be a SoDak reverse, filled with rain but not with lightning.
3. All the same, I don't have the comfort of seeing them coming. All those trees get in the way.

The wind I don't miss, and without the wind the lack of foresight doesn't bother me. However, I've missed the thunder and lightning more than I would have ever expected.

This summer the skies almost seem to be making up for lost time. After three summers with only three or four major storms each, this summer we're up to two or three a week. This morning a particularly loud one blew through; tonight, more is expected.

And I’m looking forward to it. Fully and completely.