The Twister: The Thunderstorm

“What kind of a day is this going to be?” Rita wondered, as she looked out the window early that the morning. “This looks really eerie.”

It was as if the sky was grimacing in agony. It was far too dark to be a normal day. The air was almost too heavy to breathe and malodorous. It continued to be very hot and humid. Heavy clouds hung low making it extremely dark for a summer day. The dry leaves on the maple trees cringed, curled up and turned upside down, waiting to have their thirst satiated. The sky promised rain all day, but somehow did not deliver until the evening.

“Sky, I can feel your pain,” said Rita. “It will rain soon.”

As darkness began to settle in, a violent thunderstorm began to tear free of its invisible anchor. The roar of a howling wind resounded in the distance. It gradually roared louder and simultaneously, stacked haunting, dark, gray-green clouds high in the sky.

As the first raindrops began to fall, the thirsty leaves twisted and turned, quickly lapped up the elusive raindrops. The roar of thunder increased with intermittent, penetrating streaks of bright lightning blanketing the sky. Soon huge, raindrops began to pelt everything in sight. Buckets of rainwater water poured off the eaves troughs like huge sheets of cold, gray, melting ice. Trees began to sway in the wind and their branches started to turn, twist and twirl as if in a violent dance of dismay. The high winds, increasingly twister-like in nature, wreaked havoc all around the area leaving many large branches torn from trees lying on the ground.

“I knew it was not going to be a good day, weather wise,” said Rita, later. “At least this was only a thunderstorm with a twister. We are lucky this did not turn into a full-blown tornado. Thank you, God.”

Later news reports about the thunderstorm stated that metal from the roof of the airport terminal had been torn away. Broken metal and glass littered the parking lot as the wind had damaged one car after another. Numerous uprooted trees left that part of the city without power.