A Penguin in the Orchard

Spring in Iowa

When it was 88 degrees yesterday, with humidity in the 90% range, we should have known.

CNN.com - Tornadoes rip through eastern Iowa, killing one - Apr 14, 2006

Tornadoes tore across a university campus overnight, ripping roofs and walls off a sorority house, homes and apartments, crushing cars, and killing a man in a mobile home southeast of town.

It’s actually possible that we were hit by two tornadoes last night. The first reports were of a tornado touching down in SW Iowa City, tearing part of the roof off a Menard’s lumber yard. We had huge hail during that first wave. Literally, the hail stones bouncing in my back yard were more than 2″ across. They sounded like mortars going off on our roof.

After that first wave, I stepped outside to check for damage to the cars (we don’t have a garage). The cars looked surprisingly good but, as I turned to the north, I saw a sizeable tornado not too far away, illuminated by the lightning. I don’t know for sure that it was on the ground, but I couldn’t see the bottom for the neighborhood houses. This morning, I’m assuming that was the tornado that went through Iowa City.

Aside from not having a garage, we also don’t have a basement - we live right at the edge of a wetlands area. So, we spent more than an hour in the interior hallway of our house with the bedroom TV turned up so we could hear the coverage.

Update: My wife TiVO’ed the local news coverage this morning. We are very, very lucky. The bulk of the damage was straight to our west, within two miles of our home. There’s a lot of devastating damage at the corner of Highway 6 and Riverside Drive, an intersection I drive through every day on the way to and from work. I’ll try to get out today with the camera to post some photos.