Heat Waves, Storms, and Travel

During this week, I have been tuning in to the Weather Channel on and off keeping an eye on the weekend forecast. This was due to plans to visit Point Pleasant, NJ with family. Early this week, the forecast seemed all clear. On Wednesday, things did a 180 with rain and storms being called for Saturday through Tuesday.

We've had some scorching hot days and severe thunderstorm warnings two days in a row, Wednesday and Thursday. I didn't know until afterward, but my area was under a tornado watch for part of Wednesday. We did get a thunderstorm, but it wasn't so bad here that day.

Yesterday, however, it seemed as though we were in for one mean storm...very high wind gusts, cloud-to-ground lightning included. I looked out my front window at one point and the sky still wasn't stormy or ominous looking. Less than five minutes later, I looked out there again and a very dark cloud was looming overhead. That is when I took the photo below of the huge storm cloud.

These two photos I took were of the stormy view out back, another reason why severe thunderstorms always have me on edge! It makes me wonder how I'd be as a storm chaser...or someone who goes on storm chasing adventures with the pros. I doubt I'd really have the guts to do that, what with how nervous I get from the severe thunderstorms here.

The thunder and lightning started shortly after and the rain was pretty heavy towards the end as the wind whipped it around.

As the storm approached, I noticed that I had lost my internet connection...although that happens here sometimes even during decent weather. That, of course, is a total hassle for me as I use the internet to research for term papers, share photos, blog, tweet, etc. Below is a screen capture I made, which shows the disconnected internet icon on my computer's task bar. To the left of the speaker volume icon, the double monitor icon was missing a blue globe...an indicator not to try the internet because it's down.

Once I was able to get back online, I found out that some friends had lost power, saw large hail coming down and even big trees getting knocked over. Similar stories were also being shown on the Weather Channel and via story links posted by news outlets that use Facebook.

Meanwhile, the Weather Channel's weekend forecast changed again...this time calling for a sunny and hot day on Saturday. So, that was good news to see that once again it may be sunny instead of rainy and stormy on a day of plans. We'll see what happens, although I am looking forward to visiting Point Pleasant. These plans were already held off once because of car issues and other things, and it will be my first trip to this particular NJ shore point.