Monday August 5th 2024

I didn’t sleep well last night. The outer bands of tropical storm or hurricane Debby were moving into the area. It wasn’t heavy rain or prolonged wind, but it had its loud and violent moments. Basically, it was just enough noise and uncertainty to keep me awake until the early morning hours.

Soon after I got to sleep I woke up to the sound of a weather alert from my phone. It was about 6AM. There was a tornado warning within the county. I turned on the TV and pulled up the weather radar on my phone. The warned area was on the west side of the county and heading north. I’m located in the very northeast corner of the county. I was clearly not in the path of the alerted area and the TV was downplaying the likely hood of the radar indicated tornado of lasting more than a very brief time. In fact the National Weather Service dropped the alert before it was scheduled to end.

That wasn’t the last of the alert “fun”. I didn’t go back to sleep. About 8AM another tornado warning was issued. This one didn’t alert on my phone, but it was more of a concern. The track of another radar indicated tornado was straight at me. The only positive element was the distance. Apparently, tornadoes associated with tropical systems are very short track before they disappear.

The tornado, if there ever was one, didn’t make it to my area. Both of the tornado warnings were associated with new bands of storms passing through this area. They were more intense than the overnight storms. The wind blowing in my slide out room toppers and the sound of rain on the roof were terrible. The angle of the wind seemed do be just right for maximum noise. The heavy storm activity continued until about noon before there started to be gaps between rain showers. The sun almost came out in the afternoon.

I had enough time between showers to take a short walk around the campground. It looks like one plastic shed didn’t make it through the storm, but for the most part I didn’t see much damage. The retention ponds were a foot or two higher than they were on Saturday. A couple of ducks had even taken up residence. The storm seems to be far enough away now to have much less frequent band of rain impacting this area.