I'll Huff and I'll Puff, and I'll Make a Bunch of Unsubstantiated Claims: Paul Douglas.

No our house did not blow down in the storm last night. I did call Opa to find out what happened up in Springvale. Power went out at the old place, but nothing terrible. So anyway, Paul Douglas, a local weather god, interrupts Letterman to tell us how apocalyptic this storm is, and how we need to build an ark, or move into waterproof concrete bunkers yada, yada, yada. I stayed up to monitor what was happening, just in case we needed to head to the basement. No doubt the storm was severe, but come on. He kept spouting off about how there were "radar indicated" winds of 100mph in the north metro. 100. Miles. Per. Hour. What a load of crap. You would think that the next day we would see widespread damage from these incredible winds. Nope. I saw a report of a tree down on Arcade St in St. Paul, but nothing in the north metro. Not only was he wrong about the winds, there was "radar indicated" hail up to 1.5 inches in diameter covering South Minneapolis. I walked over to the window just to see if there was 1.5 inch diameter hail falling on my house since I live in S Mpls. Nope. No hail at all. Just rain. Why oh why would Paul report these "radar indicated" events without corroboration? Hmmm. I don't know. Could it be that he has made millions of dollars selling weather related computer software to teevee stations as a side business, so computers are always right? Could be. What gets me is that weather dorks complain how people do not take them seriously when there is a severe weather outbreak. What do you expect you morons, you tell me it's hailing on my house and I look out my window and see nothing but rain, yeah I'm not going to take you seriously.

In any case, it was a pretty impressive storm. If you've ever been within a few miles of an airport and heard the rumble of a jet as it takes off, this is what we heard for about 5 minutes straight at one point. There was so much lightning that the thunder was a low grade rumble that literally did not stop for 5 minutes. It was a very impressive lightning show too. Hail, no. 100mph winds, no. Severe storm, yes. Was I more apprehensive about this storm than I should have been, yes. Did it keep me from enjoying it more than I could have, yes. Thank you Paul and all of your cohort.

This was the second outbreak of severe weather the metro has experienced since we came back from vacation. Over the weekend there were storms that ripped through St. Paul and toppled hundreds of large trees on the State Fairgrounds and around Como Park. On my bike commute, I ride through the storm damaged area, and along Wheelock Parkway there are dozens and dozens of trees and branches down. I saw a bunch of 6 inch diameter trees snapped in two. There were branches on top of houses, car windows smashed, and one house had a porch roof destroyed by a fallen tree.

On a non-weather related note, our next door neighbors, Sue and Sherry have sold their house and are moving out. Totally bums me out. They are very dear to us, and we shared a lot of laughs. Unfortunately, they were just not able to manage home ownership and they had to sell out. Although they bought their house after we bought ours, they've been living on the block longer than we have been here. They rented from Crazy Carol, who lives down the block, for years before they bought the house next door to us. Who knows if the new buyer is going to be a good neighbor or not. We'll see. I get sad looking at their house knowing that S&S aren't there anymore. Sigh.