A Rhode Islander Experiences a Tornado Warning

In Rhode Island, actually in all of New England, they say, "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes." They say that in Ohio too, and I'm learning that it's true.

On Sunday, March 18, Columbus was experiencing a hot, but gorgeous day. There were pop-up thunderstorms in the afternoon, but until 6:00 they had stayed out of the area where I live. At 6 p.m. those thunderstorms turned into a tornado warning and the sirens blasted.

I had heard sirens like that before. In Cooperstown, N.Y., where I spent two years at grad school, sirens went off everyday at noon and whenever there was an emergency that the volunteer fire department needed to respond to. We had been told stories at our grad program about students newly arrived from the midwest heading to their basements as a result of these sirens going off and staying there until morning.

When I heard those sirens, I knew what to do, although first I closed my window, which was wide open, and unplugged everything. It was bright and sunny outside my window. Then the hallway window showed the full story, dark skies in the opposite direction. I went downstairs and opened the door to the basement. I couldn't help but watch the thunderstorms roll in; I posted the video I took along with this blog entry. I was only two feet away from the open basement door. After the two-minute video, I headed into the basement, where I could hear the wind, rain, and thunder. It was a crazy 30-45 minutes.

After the warning was lifted, I headed back upstairs. It was still raining, but there was a rainbow outside. There were scattered thunderstorms for the rest of the night with really neat lightning and even hail. I have never seen hail that big in R.I.

We were all fortunate that there wasn't any real damage to the area and no one got hurt. As thrilling an experience it was, I'd rather not repeat it.

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