Spring heavy weather

This was written early afternoon May 20, and I am sincerely hoping all the severe weather being discussed came to nothing bad; that the only tornadoes that spawned at worst tore up someone's pasture, and that the storms did NOT hit during afternoon drive-time.

But yeah. Tornadoes are an old, old fear of mine. I grew up in Ohio, another state that has tornadoes. (I guess Europe and Asia, they are less common there? Something about the relatively large land mass of the continental US? But that would suggest they should also be a thing in China...)

I *just* remember the bad 1974 outbreak that pretty much leveled Xenia, Ohio. Now, Xenia was nowhere near where we lived, but it was in *Ohio* and that was enough for me as a kid. I was afraid of tornadoes.

Granted, we had a basement - and the plan was, "go down there if the sirens sound." My parents would grab the cat (and later, my little brother) and I would follow them down there. I usually tried to grab at least a couple of my stuffed animals; they were precious to me and I didn't want to lose them.

(Still, as an adult - the few times I've decamped to the bathroom in case of a tornado I've grabbed a number of them. On the grounds that if you lose everything, it helps to have something comforting.)

Here, it's a bit harder to weather tornadoes safely: because of our shallow depth-to-bedrock, basements are generally not a thing. Some people have in-ground storm shelters, and I admit I've contemplated it. (Or, seeing if there was some way one could either be bolted in - as an aboveground shelter - into the back of my garage or even convert a closet in my house, though losing a closet would be hard). The garage option might *not* be so good; it is close to my elm tree and if that thing came down...well.

But I've also been told by "old timers" that tornadoes here are a lot less likely since the lake filled up; apparently something like the Lake Effect that influences snowfall in some places (a heat-sink kind of effect) tends to "steer" severe weather north or south of us. I don't know if that's true, but I will say in the 20 years I've lived here I can count the number of tornado warnings where I had to take cover on both hands. Usually in my bathroom at home, though once when I lived in the apartment I did go to one of the on-campus shelters...it wasn't a good experience. (The campus is required by law to open the public-shelter part of the building to the community. We've been warned once or twice to be sure our office doors are locked when we leave for the day because of that...)

I remember the May 20, 2013 Moore tornadoes - I was traveling to visit my parents (much as I am doing on the 20th of this year). I remember getting worried e-mails from people who knew me on Ravelry and elsewhere - mostly people not familiar with Oklahoma's geography and wondering if I was OK. (I remember hearing about the sad loss of life at some of the schools in Moore while I was traveling on the train; smartphones were less common then than now, but still enough people had them to keep up with the news. )

So anyway: here's hoping everyone's OK. I like spring here but I sure don't like the severe weather.