Tag Archives: weather

Rainy, lovely day

Rain drops on hydrangeas.

Today was day two of summer showers in the Nashville area — today had more “severe” storms than yesterday, featuring golf ball-size hail and heavy downpours — which has kept temperatures in the 70s and made the atmosphere crystal clear.

It’s been lovely. Call me crazy, but I love a good downpour. (As long as its not featuring tornadoes, and I don’t like hail.)  I love how clean everything gets. Rain makes the grass green, makes flowers bloom.

I love the way the sound relaxes the body. I haven’t heard rain on a tin roof in a long time, but I remember it being a glorious sound. I’ll occasionally play a rainfall sound to help sleep come quickly.

This morning, I was awakened by the roll of thunder. I opened my eyes, and I realized the bedroom was as dark as night. I rolled over. I closed my eyes. I drifted back into a deep, deep sleep.

I sipped coffee to rainfall. I snuggled a shaking cat as thunder got particularly loud mid-afternoon. I ducked back inside away as yet another storm chased me away from photographing beautiful pink and purple sunset skies.

All day I wished I could send the rain back home to Texas, where the drought is awful. My parent’s lawn has ceased to even exist for lack of rain. Dust covers every surface. Their dog seeks the cooling effects of a small kiddie pool, while rain stays away and temperatures have hit the 100s. I felt a little guilty for enjoying a rainy, lovely day here in Nashville.

Tomorrow temps will probably be back in the 90s. The cool, fresh weather just a memory. Lawn mowers will fire up, and the water bottle will be refilled multiple times. Summer is here and it’s not going anywhere soon. I’m just glad I got the opportunity to enjoy today for all its cleansing goodness.

The power of weather

I’ve spent the last three days watching the weather almost non-stop. I’m fried. I could never be a weather forecaster. I just… couldn’t.

Monday, I watched the storms roll through Arkansas as I helped my parents get back home to Texas. I watched the storms move across the state, and I’d call my parents when I felt they needed to get off the road and wait a storm out. As they made it through safely, I continued to watch… my heart aching for those in the path of the tornadoes and flooding.

The next day, I watched to get a feel for what was headed this direction, and I also watched the weather back in Texas… once again giving my parent’s updates as they ran errands. Texas needs rain so bad… so, so, so bad. But the storms that popped up had a violent hand. I feared for the safety of friends, family and strangers alike.

By the time we went out last night, my stomach was in knots. I feared what the next day would bring to us. I once again had a heavy heart for those affected by the wrath of nature.

We got home from being downtown, and in an eerie similarity to almost a year ago, my husband and I slept in shifts… keeping weary eyes on the radar.

Thankfully, we do have a basement to retreat to if it got ugly. But we talked about, “What would we do if…?” I couldn’t wrap my brain around the rest of that sentence.

I did get some sleep, being jerked awake by National Weather Service warnings blasting out of the TV. Here in Nashville, we were thankfully spared. Murfreesboro sustained a lot of damage, but Nashville itself was okay. However, we watched with knotted stomachs as cities in Alabama were hit hard. And we still watch as I type this as the storms continue to march across Georgia, east Tennessee, etc. The death count rises. The video and photos tug at my heart.

I am so thankful to have been spared, but I ache at the same time for those who WERE affected. I keep reading posts on Twitter… people who are pausing to reflect on the day’s events. We are humbled by nature once again.

I grew up in “Tornado Alley.”  We not only had fire drills, we had tornado drills. I grew up with this stuff… and even with that being said, I will NEVER “get used to” this stuff. The fear I have for them… the respect I give to them… tornadoes are horrible.  Tornadoes are humbling. Tornadoes remind us all that we don’t have control over everything, and all we can do sometimes is hope and pray for the best. And if “the best” is not what we get, we hope and pray for the strength to carry on and pick up the pieces.