A Storm Is Coming

Storms never last do they, baby
Bad times all pass with the winds
Your hand in mine stills the thunder
You make the sun want to shine


I'd seen the warnings online earlier in the day: a chance of severe thunderstorms moving through central and eastern Pennsylvania in the evening. But I was surprised when I looked again later in the day and saw the new bad-weather news: Tornado Watch!

A series of dramatic clouds marched across the horizon, and I ran for my camera to take pictures, of course. And then suddenly the sky opened up and it began to POUR! I took my camera back inside as it started raining heavily, with lots of lightning and thunder. My husband, still standing on the porch, opened the front door and yelled for me to come back outside and watch.

And when I got there, the wetness turned to whiteness, as hail began to fall. Each piece was about the size of a pea, and we had two rounds of it, the second round quite a bit larger and louder and heavier than the first.

We stood on the front porch acting like we were crazy people, laughing and shouting and dancing around, watching the hail. (OK, so we don't see hail too often in these parts.) "This probably isn't a good thing," my husband shouted above the winds. And I agreed. Alas, the worst of it was when the hail turned heavier and louder, battering the house and scaring the poor Tabbycat!

But then the heaviest and most outrageous of the storms moved off to the east, and the tornado watch was cancelled, and everything calmed back down again. We tore our eyes from the skies; went back to our TV shows. And in the morning, we awoke to clearing blue skies and beautiful golden yellow sunshine.

And so it all ended with a morning where perfect black cows threw perfect black shadows on freshly washed grass that was green today, but hadn't been yesterday. It was a morning that would make you doubt that such storms were even possible. No, it made it all seem like nothing more than a bad dream.

The soundtrack to accompany this image is a favorite tune that I can't believe I've never posted here before. Theirs is one of the great love stories of country music, and the album this tune is from is called Leather and Lace. (Yes, the album's title track was the song you're thinking of, and it was written for them by Stevie Nicks, with help from Don Henley.) The song to accompany this image of storm clouds gathering - and the source of the lyrics quoted above - is Storms Never Last, performed by Jessi Colter and Waylon Jennings.