Unusual Weather For This Time of Year
It was Saturday night, and I was about 14 or so. I stayed the weekend at my best friend’s mom’s place, and the weather had been unusual for mid-spring.
This was probably in April of 2014, and I had been working on the school musical. Well, the previous evening during rehearsal, there were heavy winds, and a tornado was reported nearby.
So, fast-forward to Saturday evening, and the winds have calmed, and we’re burning trash in a metal barrel. When the fire went out, we went in for dinner.
During dinner, another heavier storm began to brew. It was almost dark when we finished eating, so we went into the front yard to check out the trees swaying in the heavy wind.
We were on a main road out in the country, with the house being about 18 meters (20 yards) from the road. This particular side of the road happened to have overhead power lines.
Welp, as we were in the middle of the yard, I happened to see a burning piece of paper aloft on the wind coming from behind the house. I knew something was wrong.
Immediately we thought, “Oh, snap! The barrel tipped over!” So, we quickly ran back to the barrel—only to find it perfectly fine with nary a cinder burning. Huh.
But then, as we went back inside the house and passed through the living room, a massively bright flash filled the room from the glass storm door leading to the front yard.
As it subsided, I saw a live power line dancing around where I had just been standing, not 30 seconds before. My mate would have made it, but not I.
Three tornadoes touched down in our county at the same time about 15 minutes after the power line fell, the closest being only 2 kilometers (1.5 miles) out from our location.
The severed end of the power line still on the post lit some nearby trees on fire that got immediately fanned up by the wind. Thankfully it started to rain before it got out of hand.