the storm that wasn't

[mellowtigger]

For several days, the weather prognosticators were warning everyone of the tornado-prone storm that was coming on Monday. I've never seen anything like this news phenomenon here. Sure, meteorologists predict storms that are days ahead, and they warn of tornadoes even a few hours early, but this was panic in a time frame that I've never seen before.

Reddit was flooded with social media posts. People kept asking how to prepare and where to go, like they were expecting pandemonium. My favorites were The Simpsons, the Dominator 3 storm chaser vehicle (for good reason apparently), the long storm anxiety suggestion list, someone panicked from all of the talk, to someone condemning the hysteria, the Vikings football reference (with this map showing the Twin Cities in the center of the projected severe storm), and a great map of the storm splitting in half and avoiding Minneapolis entirely (supposedly because of our hilarious storm shield).

My threat-meter is calibrated differently. I charged my phone. That's all I did to prepare. There were so many other social media posts warning us about this Monday storm. The post that I'll actually show you you, though, is this one, below. That social media post links to this summary (Weather.gov) of the 2011 May 22 tornado spree.

I don't know when this overhead image was originally taken, but this one was modified by me to show you approximately where I live. The light green path is the path of the tornado over a decade ago. My house is located at the white dot near the top, at the very edge of the tornado path. I live in the Jordan neighborhood of north Minneapolis. My home is now disaster-proof, in that imaginary statistics of The World According To Garp scene where Robin Williams' character buys a "pre-disastered home" after it is struck by an airplane. :)

I posted about my experience of that tornado after it happened, when I lived in a nearby city, after hearing the stereotypical "train" noise of the nearby tornado. Two days later, I posted a map of the approximate tornado path, based on my observations of the destruction left behind. I see that furr_a_bruin posted a reply in that one, RIP.