When The Target's Too Far Away

You travel on the Internet! To whatever destination you want.

Like today, February 5, 2008. I'm stuck here in Conway, SC. Got all my lights in out of the yard before the sun went down since I knew we had a chance for some great (or not-so-great, depending on how you look at it) weather tomorrow.

After getting that done, and seeing Bodhi off with his dad, I hit the web. I first opened two of my favorite sites for weather information, Stormtrack.org which concentrates on storm chasing and chasers, and Storm2K.org, which has a strong tropical following, but has an all-around weather function to it also.

By the time 3:00 AM on the 6th rolled around, I had no less than 10 different sites/windows open on the screen tracking storms. This is also about the time I gave up and did my usual rounds on Facebook and Myspace before typing this up and going to bed.

While I would have loved to have been in the field (still have yet to actually chase), I was pretty darn successful with my cyber chase! Tracked many tornadoes across the south through Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, and Kentucky. Tracked a deadly tornado up through north central Arkansas. Caught a tornado on a live webcam out of Memphis as it tracked across the southern part of town. I'm still kicking myself about not getting to the Union University webcam before it got hit (had I hit the "go" button 30 seconds earlier I would have seen it hit the campus, and destroy the camera...but alas, I got a "the site could not be found" screen). Tracked a tornadic storm from Mississippi, all the way through downtown Nashville, and up past Tompkinsville, KY. Later tracked another storm from west of Nashville, through it's northern suburbs, and out through Monroe County, KY again. Then tracked yet ANOTHER tornadic storm through Franklin, and the southern suburbs of Nashville before just giving up.

After all, anyone in their right mind knows it's dangerous to chase after dark, anyway!

My thoughts and prayers go out to all who were affected tonight, and to those still being affected, and those to be affected tomorrow. Many fatalities occurred during this early season outbreak, and it's somewhat unsettling to know that as I was watching these storms track across the land on radar, people were dying in them (3 passed away in an Arkansas storm, 3 in Muhlenburg County in KY, 2 just west of Jackson, TN, I believe 1 in Memphis, and at least 2 in Sumner County, TN northeast of Nashville). And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. There were MANY injuries all throughout the region, and classes have been canceled until at least the 15th (I believe) at Union University in Jackson, TN, where 3 dorms were destroyed, and several students were trapped (thank goodness none were seriously injured).

Round 2 tomorrow, though it shouldn't be as bad. And it should be right here! Hmm...maybe we should take that off the net and onto the road?!?!?!