serious showers

A fairly ferocious thin, intense line of thunderstorms just went over betwoon 6:00 ad 6:30. We are under a tornado watch till midnight, but unless there's more weather making up out west of Wichita Falls, it seems to have gone by.There actually wasn't much thunder near here, and no obvious lightning strikes. A little hail, half-inch chunks, fell on the deck, just a dozen or so. LOTS of rain, so much that it overflowed the gutter and came pouring down the side of the house like when the downspout was clogged, even though the water from the downspout was shooting across the deck.

After half an hour or so it slacked off and then quit, mutters of thunder moving off toward the east. The sky got noticeably lighter, though it is now darkening with dusk. I had the computer unplugged, but it seemed I could hook up again. While it was off I listened to the last disk of the Hubbell book, about her observations of her terrarium-full of camel crickets, and made an experimental copper ring. The cardinals are out in the gathering dusk, calling away. Hmmm, there was just another roll of thunder in this vicinity, maybe I should check the radar again . . .