oooof What is the deal with all this destructive weather

Nate, Nate! Come out, come out whereever you are!

Nate Me Ol Mate - We is thinking of you - let us know you are OK if you can

I made it! Wahoo!! Thanks guys.

Yeah, that was a wild storm. Should've known something was up, it was 90+ degrees and outrageouly humid, too hot for Minneapolis this time of year. In any case, sunny all day, and I'm working until 6:30 pm when I noticed it was completely dark out, also too early for Minneapolis this time of year.

I get outside and it's not just dark out, it's green as well and I can see a bunch of heat lightning in the distance. Soon enough it started raining like no rain storm I've seen in downtown Minneapolis before. I was at the pub when it hit, I went out for a smoke when it broke for a minute under an awning. All of the sudden it starts flapping violently, it's pouring, the wind is howling, **CUCUMBER**'s flying through the streets and I'm thinking 'wtf am I doing out here'?

Managed to get my arse back inside all right. It was crazy though, the first time I've ever seen high-speed winds as such heading due West (you could tell from the aforementioned flying **CUCUMBER**)! They always go East through Minneapolis, so we had some circular action, plus you could see funnels when you looked up into the sky.

In the end, my place was fine and the pub was a fine place to weather the storm!

Have a nice weekend everyone!

-- Edited by NateO at 00:06, 2005-09-24

See, told you smoking was life threatening!  (Sorry! )

Glad you're OK.  Sounded pretty cool to watch (I mean, obviously not if it was shredding your house, but from a nice cosy pub)

Yay. Nate Mate's, not dead. I declare a public holiday every Sunday to commemorate his victory over the awesome power of nature!

We had a tornado you know.  In Fleetwood.  (near Blackpool)  There was extensive damage:

AND some bloke's ears popped.

No, really, I'm not making this up.  The full details of the devestation, which covered an area of 0.25 square miles can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/4292582.stm