Wednesday, December 30, 2015

From freezing cold to toasty hot to tornados!

Saturday, December 26th, 2015

Today we got up and quickly got moving, and were on the road about 9:15am. 

The prep for heading out was minimal, but the 33 degree temp plus 24mph winds made it challenging. We also had to pay before we left. I managed to walk into the office without my credit card, but had almost enough cash to get it covered (short 82 cents, but they gave it to me, Merry Christmas!)

We drove into rain along the way, which at times was very heavy. Once we got past Wichita Falls, storms were picking up and areas east of Dallas were having severe storms develop-- the front was moving east, and the cold side of the front was 50s, while the warm side was near 80. 

We stopped at a rest area near Bowie and we could tell we were ahead of the front, it was downright balmy! Also, eberything inside the rig now had condensation on it from the drastic temperature change.

Storms developing

As we got closer to the metroplex, I was alerted of tornado warnings via my weather app on my phone. I began monitoring the storms.

When we got to Denton, we decided to stay on 380 that runs due east from Denton to McKinney, etc. then cut down to Lavon and Rockwall to Terrell. 

Typically, we would take I-35 to the 190 Toll Road, around to I-30 then to Rockwall and down to Terrell.

Well, the storms were popping up south of the metroplex and moving north very quickly. I watched a few that might be in our path, but luckily did not cause issues. 

One storm started near Ellis County and threatened Ennis with a tornado warning. We watched this storm via radar, head up toward Dallas and then through the Sunnyvale and Rowlett areas with continuous tornado warnings. 

We stopped in Bucees in Terrell about 6:15 to grab a fast bite, then go on to the park, Bluebonnet Ridge RV Park and Cabins. Once we arrived we got set up very fast, as another severe storm was headed our way, and they were still warning about the storm that passed through Rowlett and was now causing havoc just north of there in Copeville, were we had just been through on 78.

We watched another storm on radar and it passed just west of us. (Phew!)

But as the news continued, we slowly learned that the tornado-warned storm through Sunnyvale and Rowlett was a tornado on the ground, and there was extensive damage. We realized that if we had gone the way we "normally go" mentioned earlier, we would have been potentially driving right into this storm!

We communicated to all our family and friends that we made it there safely. I stayed up and watched the news and weather for a long time, while Tony went to bed. It was quite an adventure. 

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