Stormy Week

This past week has sure been a rough one, with strong storms on Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday, the storms started around 6 a.m. with heavy rain, small hail, severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado warnings. Several schools had to re-route their buses to the nearest school, instead of their intended destination, to get the kids off the roadways and into a safe shelter. The kids went from the bus into tornado drill mode. These storms didn't move out of the area until around noon.  

Here you can see the rain coming down.

And the small hail.

Our back yard had a small creek running through it.

The neighbors had an even larger one.










With the TOR:CON index being at a forcasted 9 for Friday, and Bowling Green being the suspected center of the activity, officials from the National Weather Service arrived in Bowling Green Thursday evening to help with the tracking of these storms. With such a high probability of tornadic storms being forcasted, our county as well as many of the surrounding counties heeded the warnings and took action to prepare for the worst. Schools let out early, even WKU canceled classes, factories shut down, and businesses closed early. My sister has worked at the bank for several years and has never know of them closing the bank, especially on a Friday. 

The day time heating and humidity made conditions perfect for intense storms. We reached a record breaking 84 degrees.

At one point we had three tornado warnings for our county going simultaneously. 

We had very strong winds. Even after the storms moved out of our area the winds were strong.

My sister had a rather lengthy hail storm at her house.

It almost looks like my brother-in-law is holding snow instead of hail. At least it was not the ping pong or golf ball sized hail that others received.

After the storms moved out, we noticed a faint rainbow.
I always love seeing a rainbow!!










I am thankful that we weathered the storms with only a few scattered tree limbs down and a soggy yard. So many others were not as lucky and our thoughts and prayers go out to them. And, especially to the families that lost loved ones. I believe there were 19 deaths in kentucky from these storms.

On a brighter note, I was able to find a few shadows earlier in the week before all the stormy weather moved in.

I was taking the dog out and noticed a flower/plant of some sort growing in between the bricks of the patio.

 

The morning sun shines on the bricks and was creating delicate little shadows.

Hopefully, the coming week will be much milder. As I am typing this our local weatherman is forcasting snow flurries for mid week... Crazy Kentucky Weather!!

Thanks for dropping by, I hope you take a momment to leave a comment or two and that you visit Shadow Shot Sunday 2 and Straight Out Of The Camera for more great photos.

Happy Sunday, Everyone!!

Kentucky Weather

I've heard people say that if you don't like the weather here in Kentucky to just stick around, because it will change.
Well the past few weeks has definitely proven that statement to be true. We have had some very cold temperatures, snow, ice, rain and sun.
On the 6th, I took my daughter to school and went back home for about an hour before heading to the office. In the hour that I was at home we received enough snow to cover the yard. The temperature was above freezing and the snow was a powdery snow so it stuck only to the ground, not the roads. Traveling was not a problem and it was gone by the next day.



Except for frozen ponds, I guess. I drive past this pond on the way to my daughter's school and I couldn't resist stopping to get a picture or two of this beautiful wintry scene. I like how the snow is only on the pond.







Plus, the trees were casting shadows on the snow covered pond. How could I not shoot that scene.









By the next week, the temperature was in the teens with wind chills in single digits. On the 13th we received three inches of snow. The kids were happy because school was canceled.

This picture is the small snow drift between my house and the neighbors.





Here is a small line in the snow behind our garage, not really sure what caused it, but thought it was interesting.

School was out for three days, but the first two were too cold for the girls to get out. By the third day they were ready to venture outside for a few pictures in the snow.

We thought that school would be out again due to the 1/4 inch of ice that covered everything on the night of the 15th. But by the next morning the ice was gone and it was raining. So off to school they went.
The next day the sun was shinning and everything was back to normal.
Awwww, Kentucky weather.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and that you head over to Hey Harriet to see other Shadow Shots from around the world.