The Wonderous World of Weather

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Jesus, Mary and Joseph and all things holy!!!

Sorry, but I just had the most amazing and terrifying weather experience of my entire life (actually, that’s not exactly accurate because it is in fact continuing more or less unabated outside my window even as I write this) – and that’s saying something for someone who has experienced an Oklahoma thunderstorm and a South Korean monsoon. But neither of those can begin to hold a candle to an honest-to-God-holy-shit-the-sky-has-exploded-and buckets-are-coming-down-Jesus-H-fucking-Christ-cats-and-dogs-and-random-farm-animals-falling-from-the-sky-Beninese-tropical-deluge! With lightning that turns pitch black into full daylight for a few fractions of a second. I swear within a minute-and-a-half “la rue” turned into “le riviere.” And moments later I saw my first actual in person tornado. I had to come halfway around the world to do it, but take a look at the attached photos.

...moments later I saw my first actual tornado.

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The little red dot in the middle of the pictures is the top of a nearby (1/4 mile away) cell phone tower. Within moments after the last picture was taken it was so dark and raining so hard that the red light was no longer visible. If you look beyond the red light you can see in the background the funnel forming about a mile out (just a guess). In the last picture (tornado3.jpg – sorry it’s so blurry, I was scared shitless) I’m pretty sure it was on the ground because there was stuff coming up from the ground as well as falling toward it. Which was about the time the power went out…hmmm, maybe that’s why I couldn’t see the red light anymore. Luckily, the funnel did not decide to move in our direction, but at this point I have no idea how long it was on the ground or what kind of damage it might have done. If there’s news to share on that front later I will.

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YEAH! The power just came back on! And then it went out again…c’est l'Afrique!