There is a cold comfort setting inside your house listening to the rain and thunder outside. Then a cold comfort when you realize the area they just placed the warning on is less than 2 miles away.
We ran out of Kechi to Benton through blinding rain and wind. Then it slowed down and so did we. Never a good sign. Lots of reports were coming in but we were facing an irregular phenomena. Hook echos are to produce to the SW sides of Supercells. Not smack dab on the western side. We pulled over to get some bearings and decided to run into the town of Benton. Just before we got there I took this.
Not really sure if it was a wall cloud, a scary looking cloud, microburst, or maybe one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse, we decided to get a little closer.
We drove through Benton. One of the problems is due to the houses, tree, etc. there was a lot in the way of seeing what we needed to see.
We thought we saw something at the end of the street.
By the time we got to a clear place, the cloud had really broken up. As stated before, we didn't know if it was a wall cloud or just something scaring the locals.
We thought about going to Kingman since it seemed to be where the more serious storms were going to play out. I ended up heading home for a little while and never made it to Kingman. I missed the Lake Afton tornado as well.
Then the squall line decided to move in.
I ran to my usual photo spot on the highest peak of Sedgwick Co.
There is something about the sight of a good strong squall about to hit and realizing that you won't make it home in time.
It been a while since I stood out in a strong storm.
It's an interesting feeling as the wind starts off slow, then increases, and keep increases until it's whistling past the light poles like a reed and hitting an F flat. Then the rain and light hail hit, and I had enough.
I was disappointed that Sunday didn't quite turn out as spectacular as I had hoped. On the other hand, with the horror show they predicted, we could have had a lot worse.
