Fanfare for the Common Man: The weatherman

I hate this weather.

Mother Nature needs to get over it and just let some mild weather permeate August and not try to make my apartment her version of an Easy Bake Oven.

My tater tots are fried.

Now, I like the afternoon thunderstorms and all. The cloud cover in the afternoons and the nice breeze pushed by the approaching storm takes the edge off the day.

Plus, I really like it when the temperature drops from 97 degrees to 72 degrees in about 25 minutes. That’s when you get some really interesting thunderstorms.

So that’s what happens this week. Here come the thunderstorms.

It knocks power out of everything in Summerville with a live light locket, and I’d heard about a possible tornado touchdown. Four of them, in fact.

So I grab my camera and head for the lake.

I love photographing approaching thunderstorms and nowhere does an approaching storm look more ominous than when I can see it approach from the other side of the lake. On the way out there though, I don’t see any ominous looking storm clouds.

They went away.

Instead, I see a rainbow, and a really nice one. So I think I’ll take a picture of that. It’s a rainbow. It’s sitting still.

How difficult would snapping a photo of the red, and orange and green and blue, shiny yellow, purple band arcing across the sky? Pretty darn difficult apparently.

But I got one. I just had to drive all over town to get it. 

I am obsessed with weather and what it’s going to be like tomorrow. I have four active radar screens I refer to several times each day saved as favorites on my computer. I love tracking storm systems as they move across the Lowcountry. I have two National Weather Service radios that give 24-hour weather forecasts for the area. Both come with the hand-crank option for electricity-and-battery-free operation in the event of a catastrophic storm where power is lost for days and society descends into chaos.
While anarchy “rains” I will at least know what tomorrow’s weather will be like whether I have electricity or not.
If I’m working and prefer some white background noise while I’m writing on stories, I’ll tune into the Weather Channel and leave it on, sometimes all day.
It’s my OCD rearing its ugly head.
As I get older though, I can’t take the weather extremes. A heat index of 120 degrees? Get serious. That’s way too hot.  

I have long maintained that when the heat index eclipses 115 degrees the clothes are coming off.

While Mother Nature called my bluff over the July 4 weekend, I didn’t race down Main Street wearing nothing but what the stork saw.

The other day it rained and I decided I wanted to go outside and play in it, which for me is just standing out in the middle of the street like I’m taking a shower. All that was missing was the soap and Prell.

But by the time I had gotten outside, the rain had moved about 20 yards down the street. It was dry and sunny where I stood, but pouring down rain on the other side of the parking lot.

I thought about chasing the rain, but then thought, you know? That’s just what the old bat wants me to do. It’s not like I didn’t already chase a rainbow for her.

It made me want a bag of Skittles.