Wordless Wednesday

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360 degree view, camera, Canon, clouds, cold, photos, snow, storms, watching the skies, weather, western sky, Wordless Wednesday

Snowy sunset on the first day of 2013.

Wordless Wednesday

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360 degree view, blue moon, camera, Canon, creativity, photography, photos, Wordless Wednesday

Once in a blue moon.

Wordless Wednesday

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360 degree view, camera, Canon, clouds, creativity, photos, watching the skies, Wordless Wednesday

Sunrise, Aug. 30, 2012. Taken off the back porch.

Too close for comfort

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360 degree view, clouds, storms, watching the skies, weather

Last night my biggest dilemma was whether or not to ride my horse since it looked as though it could rain. Once I got to the house the radio started barking at me that there was a tornado warning for extreme northeast Gray County, northwest Ford County and southwestern Hodgeman County. My ears perked right up since that’s about where my house is and I listened to the warning while looking to the west via my rear view mirror in the pickup.

I got out of the pickup and stopped in my tracks trying to identify the noise coming from the south. As soon as I realized it was the tornado sirens in Dodge City (we are about 10 miles from town) my phone rang. It was my sister. Her husband had called her and told her to go to our parents basement (they live on the same road about 1/2 mile apart) and take shelter as it was headed her way. I got in my house and the phone rang again. My husband was telling me the same thing since we don’t have storm shelter either.

Mom was at my house with Shaun, so we packed it up and headed west. I said a little prayer for the good Lord to take care of my animals and look over my house and headed down the road. However, it looked like we would be driving into a rather large wall cloud/funnel cloud, so I quickly called my sister and asked what it was doing over there. She said, “its rotating above the shed and I’m in the basement.” I told her we were headed to town and to stay safe. Called dad and asked where he was, and of course he was headed home. I told him to go to my other sister’s in town, but of course he didn’t listen.

As I was heading into Dodge City, gawkers and lookie-loos were lining the street outside of town watching the clouds and taking photos. I was not impressed and silently hoped they got stuck in the muddy ditches for their stupidity. I wasn’t stopping even though I had my camera with me.

It wasn’t even raining when I got to my sister’s house. It never really did rain there. We waited it out and eventually I went back home to check on horses, dogs and my husband. This is what I found..

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The hail beat our siding up pretty good and broke the outside pane on two windows. I’m sure it obliterated our roof and it dimpled up our metal gutters. Hopefully the insurance will take care of us.

I’m not sure if there was an actual tornado that touched down near us, but the hail/wind damage was enough to scare me. That’s for sure. I have never seen such ugly clouds as I was driving to town. Hopefully we just get nice, slow, easy rain from here on out.

Should have been a storm chaser

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360 degree view, clouds, storms, watching the skies, weather, western sky

I’m blaming it on the fact I have a smartphone with internet access and I can check the National Weather Service forecast at any hour of the day or night. I can see what the weather is currently doing or what they are predicting for a week out. I love watching the weather, especially the storms that develop around my home. I have pretty much an unobstructed 360 degree view of the environment.

Forecasters have been saying for the last week there might be a significant weather event – thunderstorms and tornadoes for today, except they were only saying 20% chance of such storms in western Kansas. However, when I stepped foot outside to get things around to go to the farm sale, I had that uneasy feeling about the weather. It was dark to the west and clouds kept rolling past us to the north. The cattle across the west fence were walking the fenceline and when I left to go to the sale they were all bunched up.

At the sale we got rained on twice, so we packed it up and went home. As soon as I got Shaun, the dogs and myself into the house it started raining and then pouring. Pretty soon round one passed by. The satellite kept going out since its on the south side of the house and the storms were coming from the southwest. Then round two came. More rain and a few chunks of hail. The TV finally came back and they were saying tornado on the ground near Ashland. Not cool. My husband was down near there. Then they were saying reports of a tornado 3 miles from the Clark County Lake. Pretty close to the Scott Family Farm. Then forecasters were saying Bucklin. Ugh. Between the intermittent satellite TV, the radar on the computer and watching the windows in the house, I about gave myself an ulcer.

Sounded like the first storm that went to the southeast of my place, produced a tornado near Wright, another reported near Spearville. Another storm went past us over to Burdett and Hanston. From the sounds of it Burdett got more than one storm out of it. The one near the farm produced a tornado near Bucklin and later Mullinville.

The clouds have gone and now the sun is shining. I wonder if the heat will bake up some more watching later this afternoon? Here’s a few pics of the backsides of the storms.

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My kind of neighbors

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360 degree view, clouds, cold, geography, storms, watching the skies, weather, western sky

Our closest neighbors are more than a mile away. From our house you can’t even see theirs because of the lay of the land. Recently in the pasture to the west, we got some new neighbors. They are the best kind.

Bear with me

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360 degree view, clouds, contact, storms, watching the skies, western sky

As the first post in a new blog I thought long and hard about what to write about, but then I gave up because nothing was perfect.

I chose the name, An Eye on the Western Sky as the name of my blog because I love watching the skies. From storms developing to clouds passing by, my eyes are always peeled above me. It doesn’t hurt that my husband and I live in a spot where we have a 360 degree view of the skies basically unobstructed.

Our humble little home’s front door also watches the western sky. In the summer you can see storms build up and go by. Some times they dump a little moisture and other times it just makes for good watching.

I hope you enjoy my posts, contact me any time at ksCowgirl78@yahoo.com.