Exciting Weather in Wisconsin! (by Andy)

We were all starving late yesterday afternoon and had just decided on pancakes, sausage and eggs for dinner - quick and yummy! Just as we opened the fridge to gather ingredients, we heard what sounded like a giant trumpet. It was the city's tornado siren. We debated staying upstairs to finish cooking, but hesitantly decided to go down to the basement with our newly purchased weather radio. A line of storms was about to pass right over us, the national weather service indicating tornadoes, 100 mph winds, 3.2 inch hail, and rain up to 3 inches per hour producing flash floods.

We spent about an hour in the basement with the other tenants of our building, one of whom was late for work. We listened carefully (at leat I did) to the NWS radio as it tracked the tornadoes and storms across southeastern WI. Fortunately, we never got any of the tornado, but we definitely got a lot of water! The window wells quickly filled; they looked like muddy aquariums. Water streamed into the basement from around the windows, between bricks, and up out of the drains, but we stayed mostly dry. The tornado warning expired and we were able to finally eat our dinner...mmmhh!

Here are some pictures from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The first is an intersection right around the corner from our apartment:





Here's an new article if you're interested:

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=759827

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