For as long as I can remember, weather has fascinated me. This fascination stems from a trip I took with my family to Colorado. I was around 8 years old, I was impressionable enough to remember how I felt and what I saw. I’ll set the scene for you to visualize.
We were driving from Colorado for a while and we were in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. I remember that it was flat, the flatness seemed to go on forever. It was such a pretty sight in itself. It felt like we were in a movie where the weather was sunny and then got dark so quickly. It started raining hard then turned to hail. I turned around in the back seat of the truck and saw the funnel cloud. It was such a beautiful but terrifying sight. Fortunately, we were near some sort of civilization and we found a Pizza Hut and we sheltered in place there. I sat facing the window and remember seeing the storm roll in. It was something I never forgot. Where am I going with this you might be thinking, I’m getting to the theme of the article. That storm in Kansas was just the beginning of my fascination. Since then, I’ve had many moments where I was reminded of just how powerful—and beautiful—weather can be.
It seems like many of my weather experiences have been out of state. On our first vacation to Sarasota, Florida, we watched a lightning storm out of my aunt’s bay window. The storm was miles away from the shore, and we didn’t get any rain, so we had a clear view. We had front-row seats to the storm and saw lightning light up the sky. The way the sky crackled with lightning strikes, and the claps of thunder reminded me of a firework show. Something pretty like that has its effects. The next day, the waves were strong for the Gulf. Waves are usually calm on the Gulf but the next day, it felt like we were on the Atlantic coast. We made the most of the strong waves jumping in and out of waves, riding the waves with our boogie boards, and simply just letting the waves take us miles down the coast. (There was no riptide, I promise, or else I wouldn’t be here writing this article).
Watching that storm from my aunt’s bay window in Sarasota felt like a safety net to nature’s power and strength. But what happens when you’re not watching a storm from a distance like a tornado chasing you from miles away or a lightning storm miles away from the shore? When the storm is right over you, shaking the ground beneath your feet? Two years ago, I found out firsthand how just intense a Southern thunderstorm can be. Living in the Midwest, storms can be intense and they can shake your house and take out the power. But a Southern thunderstorm in Dixie Alley is something that a Midwest storm is hard to compare to.
I moved to Alabama at the beginning of August. They warned me that August was the most difficult month for humidity and they were not kidding. It was like stepping into a steam room and you couldn’t escape it until you went inside and had the privilege of A/C. Why am I bringing up the month of August? You might have guessed it, the start of hurricane season. There was a storm moving through the Gulf of Mexico (or should I say Gulf or America… I jest). I tune into Hurricane season every year but two years ago, I was seated in the front row, extremely concerned, yet intrigued because I didn’t know what to expect and I wanted to keep my family updated. Even though I was 4-5 hours away from the coast, we were still in the hurricane's path.
Did I have to leave and go back home for the week? My brother joked that I could handle a Cat 1 or Cat 2 hurricane so I just toughed it out with my newly found friends. The path moved but we still had rain, rain, and even more rain. Then came the warnings and watches. I am grateful that it was the thunderstorms and nothing more because the wind was fast and the humidity was tangible. The claps of thunder were so loud, that it felt like the house was collapsing in on itself. The sky would light up and the claps of thunder would be jolting. This would be on and off for hours. Eventually, I became desensitized and just watched the storm roll through like many of my past experiences. That was Hurricane season, tornado season is another story for another time.
As I look back on these experiences, I’m still in awe of how much power and beauty weather holds. It can be both breathtaking beautiful and intensely humbling. From the quiet awe of a distant lightning storm in Florida to the raw power of thunderstorms in the Deep South. These moments have shaped how I view the world around me. It all started back in Kansas, with that first glimpse of a funnel cloud in the distance chasing us. It was a symbol of nature’s powerful force. That moment was terrifying, yet it sparked a fascination I’ve carried ever since. Weather, in all of its forms, is a constant reminder that no matter how much we try to predict or control it, nature remains a force of its own. And for me, that is exactly what makes it so fascinating. The unpredictability, the beauty, the immense power of it all, there’s nothing quite like it. I don’t chase storms, but I often find myself and my family gravitating towards them. Whether that’s watching the clouds roll in, or feeling the tension or pressure in the air change. Weather is never just a part of the background. It’s a scene that’s always evolving, one moment, one storm system at a time.