My weird weather story from Southern Illinois!

This is a WONDERFUL idea. :-) I live in Southern Illinois, at
the very tip of the state, just 8 miles from the Kentucky line.
And the weather here has been weird since we had the F4 tornado
a year ago this past May 6th. A tornado is rare in our area,
anyway. But from May 4th to 6th last summer (2003) we had
3 big tornados that did quite a bit of damage and 1 smaller one.
One of the big ones was an F4...was almost a mile wide and stayed on the ground for 33 miles...Widespread..DEVASTATING
damage...people are still rebuilding.
The F4 tornado missed our home by about 1 mile(as the crow
flies). There were 3 deaths, 2 story homes were flattened right
to the ground. Whole homes were picked up and smashed a block
or two away. One car was picked up and blew away and has still
not been found. (It belonged to one of our popular radio celebrities in the area).
Last winter was fairly mild and uneventful.
This summer has been very weird. We have had so much rain! This
has been the rainiest (sp?) gloomiest (sp?) summer I can ever
remember. And I'm a senior citizen. We've also had a lot more
electrical storms than usual. We normally have a few storms in
the spring, but by late June we're in a nice dry spell...good
for the kids ballgames! :-) The drought usually lasts till in
Sept. and then we have a little fall rain. But we have had
storms and rain WEEKLY...all summer.
We have a close friend who works with the Weather Service and he
says we are expecting a wild and brutal winter. We heat mainly
by fireplace, so we are stockpiling extra firewood. Hope others
respond to this website. Anxious to hear other stories. This
could be a very informative and helpful forum. kathryn Tweet