Well, that was exciting

Hello internet! Bit of stream-of-consciousness, it's-late-and-I-can't-be-bothered-editing, for you tonight. No photos cos it's not an easy thing to photograph.

Tornadoes don't usually come until the summer but a whole bunch of them just swept across Arkansas and wreaked havoc (more in this NY Times article ). We'd been seeing the wind warnings online all day and I had an interesting drive home. Bear in mind I had been in a windowless office since 7:30am*

As I left the mill, lightning was turning night into day a couple of times a second. I've never seen so much lightning (it beats out Sydney thunderstorms!) but it was still dry, so I got in the car (telling myself I was safe from lightning in the car... if this isn't true I don't want to know) and started the 10 mile trip home. Every time the lightning re-lit the clouds they had changed. At this point I started thinking about that tornado movie with Helen Hunt and that guy. Remember the lightning? Just like that.

And before I'd gone the mile to the freeway onramp it had gone from dry to torrential, sideways, rain. Pushing my car all over the road.

This project's not going to kill me in any way shape or form so I wasn't getting on that freeway - it's elevated most of the way and I didn't want to be the highest point around. Fortunately some of the project team are staying at a Holiday Inn near the freeway entrance so I aquaplaned through the last block and pulled in there. Spent about two hours holed up in the bar inside the mall attached to the Holiday Inn, eating oily calamari and watching the weather on tv. Several people are dead. Very surreal. By the time we'd all paid and tipped it was dry again outside. What is UP with this place?

(And it was nearly 25 degrees today. Celsius.).

*Off-topic: I've discovered the secret of getting to work early. Travel across many timezones, get utterly jetlagged, then you can reset your internal clock to whatever you like. Not sure it's worth it though.