The Houston area is dealing with a tropical storm; it has been raining since last night. The NWS warning system just came on TV and advised of a tornado warning for the next hour or so. It's always something.
Do you have a safe place prepared like a cellar or something? Maybe I've watched the Wizard of Oz one too many times......
No; there are no basements or cellars in Houston. (High water table.) We'd probably hunker in the utility room which is downstairs under the staircase.
Thanks, Shirley. I believe the tornado warning has expired for our county but we're still under a flash flood warning.
We're still having a "weather event;" rain is unrelenting thanks to TS Imelda. We have had over 17" of rain in 2 days according to our backyard gauge and it's still coming down. Many roads are closed, even I-10 at many places. Local weather is indicating 3-6" of rain per HOUR forecast today.
Are you located high enough that you do not have to worry about the flooding (I hope!), @Beth Gallagher ? I remember how terrible the flooding was at Houston the last time they had that big hurricane a couple years ago. Can’t remember the name of it right now, but it was shortly before Ina died, ad she had flooding all around her house, but not inside of the house.
Yes, thankfully we are in a high area, even though we live on the San Jacinto River. We don't have any standing water on our street but our swimming pool has "crested" a couple of times. (Harvey was the huge rain event hurricane. Some areas of Houston got 50-60" of rain. )
Michigan is not tornado alley, but we did have tornado warnings every spring and summer, and I can remember tornadoes that were visible from our house. However, perhaps because I lived in such a rural area, they generally didn't touch down where anyone lived. One guy a few miles from us lost his barn during a tornado, but that's the only tornado strike that I can remember. We didn't take the tornado warnings very seriously. Usually, we'd go outside to see if we could see a tornado. I remember one argument when my cousin and I were going to go camping in one of our shacks in the woods, and there was a tornado warning. Mom didn't want us to go, but Dad said we could go anyhow, and they got into a little bit of a spat over it. I'd have given it up to avoid the drama but my cousin was waiting. I remember my Dad saying something about there being tornado warnings every couple of days, and we can't spend the summer in the potato cellar. I can remember us going into the potato cellar only once, when we could see a tornado nearby. Michigan tornadoes since 1950