My immersion into clouds has changed the way I see the weather. The minute I looked up at this cloud, I texted Maria and said a severe storm was close, and then I looked at my weather radar app to see if I was close. My app tracks severe storms, and the cloud was prescient.

As you can see, the weather app pinned it down for me. The Farm is the small blue dot in the center of the map.

According to the radar map, heavy wind and rain will come around 6 to 6:30 p.m. and then again at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. We’re in for a stormy night. There was a heat advisory today – we’ve had many of those this summer. I’ve found my app to be accurate.

I went shopping for dinner (feta cheese and spinach quiche) and turned on the AC in my office. Covid is messing with my breath in this heat.

There’s a pretty good bet we’ll lose power if the winds are as strong as predicted. Much of the time, they aren’t.

This was a rare and exciting event when I moved up here; it’s almost routine now. But we take it seriously. When the rains come, Maria, Zinnia, and I go out onto the porch to watch the wind and rain.

Last time, a week ago,  there was lightning all over the place.

We’ll see about tonight.

The red and orange colors on the map suggest heavy rain, wind, and some lightning. It will get messy.