Tornadic Activity in February?

Yesterday was a balmy 75 degrees with blue skies and white puffy clouds. Until about 5:00 pm. then the skies turned gray. Then the thunder and lightening started and the rain poured down. Luckily, for us in Tulsa, that's about as bad as it got. Unfortunately for Oklahomans southwest of us, they didn't fare so well and actually had destruction and deaths caused by the storm.

I was out to dinner with a friend and we were enjoying ourselves so much that I guess I didn't notice the weather change much, although I did see some flashes of light and hear claps of booming thunder. When I went to my car I was ankle-deep in water! YUCK! The 2 minute drive home was interesting because the whole right lane was flooding. I got home and J and mom were bundled up in the living room watching the weather channel. My mom has been here one month and has already gone through an ice storm and now this tornado watch. She was feeling a little overwhelmed by it all. We tried to reassure her, but I know how she feels. It's exactly how I was feeling last summer, especially when I was just here in the beginning of June by myself with the two pugs.

The dogs have certainly adjusted since then, they don't grumble or bark when the thunder claps. They know that when it's raining they need to make use of their pee pee pads. They pretty much slept through it all last night. I, on the other hand, did not sleep well at all and when I got up at 2 a.m. I saw my mom's bedroom light peeking through the crack in the door, so I am pretty sure she didn't either. I don't know if we'll ever get used to the weather here. We've lived so long with the looming threat of earthquakes that we just never worried about it. They hit and you deal, feeling confident that 99.9% of the time there will be no severe damage. But with the weather here, it's almost worse because you know it's coming, you have some warning and yet you have no idea how bad it will be, where it will hit or what problems it will cause. On days like this we definitely feel like Californians in Oklahoma. I wonder if/when that will ever change.