Think and Act

There are times, when we need to think and act, immediately.

Last evening, around 5:30 pm, on with the local evening news, there was a line of script that flashed repeatedly across the television screen, giving warnings of an imminent, severe storm. Rain, thunder and lightning, high gusts of wind up to 100 km an hour, possible tornado activity and hail, were in the forecast.

The storm was supposedly coming from the east, the Lake Nipigon area and heading for the Minnesota border, basically following the shoreline of Lake Superior.

At first, to the east, the sky looked weird with a display of different colors. It gradually turned darker and darker, with thunder rumbling in the distance. There were a few streaks of lightning and occasional sheet lightning.

Wild and wonderful cloud formations began billowing, high in the sky.

It was amazing to watch!

There were clouds of various sizes, shapes and different colors, scooting in every direction. No longer was it just a storm coming in from the east. It appeared that the winds from the east were encountering those from the west and tangling with them.

Soon, it was dark enough for the street lights to turn on automatically.

By six fifteen, it was almost totally dark.

At 6:30 pm, a huge, relatively low, black cloud moved in from the west. It looked extremely heavy. It may have been a possible tornado that was forming and could have done serious damage, but it did not touch down here.

I was outside its perimeter regardless and watched it pass between where I was standing and Mount McKay.

By then, I was capturing intermittent photos with my Blackberry camera.

The sky stayed dark and the storm activity continued until 8pm, when the clouds became white and the sky turned blue again.

During the entire storm, there was a bit of rain, but not a lot. No hail either. It was windy, but not enough to have to remain inside. Leaves and seed pods were falling from the maple trees and swirling around.

Think and act is an instinctive mechanism we have and use, when there is cause for alarm. Storms don't normally cause me to be alarmed, but this one got my attention and was worth watching.