As many of you know, my secondary duty at the newspaper where I work is to keep track of severe weather for the breaking-news blog on the paper's Web site.

So, late afternoon, the line of storms comes through, and I stick around to live-blog it. Severe warnings, but not much to it otherwise. Then the storms are done, and Waco gets removed from the tornado watch, and I figure I'll get to go home soon. But there's this one little flyspeck on radar, in Falls County to our south...

Suffice to say, it didn't stay a flyspeck.

Three tornado touchdowns later (no injuries and not much damage reported, thank goodness), I'm finally home, eating a much-delayed dinner...

Storms seem to be done, at least for the moment. I've seen ke5egi's post; how are the rest of you folks?

Called my mom and sister in Arkansas; they're OK, though they spent a good portion of last night in an interior closet. They have power at their place, but downtown Cabot where my sister works is without electricity, and there was damage to some of the school buildings — between that and the power outages school's been canceled for today.

Also talked to msminlr's husband, and all's fine with them, though they had a lightning strike very close by.

Nashville Predator hockey fans were advised to stay in the arena after Tuesday night's game, seeing as how tornado sirens were going off.

The Predators had just beaten the Carolina Hurricanes...

It was bad enough that I was woken by the weather radio at 4 this morning. But the blasted (or, more to the point, blasting) thing had fallen off the table and underneath the bed, so that it took me over a minute to find it so I could shut the thing off. The announcement had already come and gone and the computer voice was reading off current temperatures by the time I turned on the actual radio part.

So I came into the living room and got on the Mac and updated the Trib weather blog, and after about an hour more on the computer went back to bed to try to get some more sleep, but no dice.

On the weather (cold) front: It looks like we may have a repeat today of the weather we had Saturday of ConDFW last year. The winds are expected to be about on that par, and there's a good chance we'll get the dust, too.

You've got a surprise tropical storm headed your way tonight...

Weather-related.

( Set your hammer down... )

We had over an inch and a half of rain here (they got more down south of us, as txcronopio can attest -- Killeen Gray Airport got 4.54" as of 10 pm). The city editor came up around midevening to work on a story and brought a dog with him.

( There's a photo here. )

The dog had been wandering loose in the rain, and Bill had almost run over it (gender undetermined). He had a spare leash from his own dog, and brought this dog -- whose name turned out to be Pepper -- to the newsroom. Quite friendly, quite active, all tags present -- the owner was an old lady who apparently accidently let it loose and didn't want to be out in the rain looking (don't blame her). So Bill took it home and will return it in the morning.

0134 175 7 W DOWNTOWN LITTLE ROC PULASKI AR 3473 9236 GOLF BALL SIZE HAIL AT RODNEY PARHAM AND INTERSTATE 430 JUNCTION. (LZK)

You guys OK?

It's been a heck of a last few days. A couple of twisters nearby but nothing wind-wise in Waco itself. We got some flooding instead. People rescued from cars, people rescued from homes; a riverboat converted into a restaurant on the Brazos River may have just gone out of business...

You've got some extremely nasty weather headed your way.

GoodThoughts...

Body: Good morning!

...Did you know that yesterday, you --

Me: YES, I KNOW.

Body: So, did you know that you slid down the steps and fell on your ass?

Me: Yes, as a matter of --

Body: 'Cause you slid down the steps and fell on your ass.

Me: Yes, I know --

Body: Just in case you'd forgotten.

Me: No, I hadn't --

Body: Because I haven't.

Me: Look, I didn't think it would be that icy. I was being careful.

Body: Obviously not careful enough. As evidenced by your sliding down the steps and falling on your ass.

Me: (sigh) Look -- here, have some hot tea and ibuprofen.

Body: Don't get the idea that bribery will work. (sip) Completely.

...where the cold front is?

http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2006/11/15/11152006wacwindforwire.html

I heard the sirens going out to what must have been the marina fire. Tree limbs bringing down power lines all over town. The power's stayed up here, but it's still blowing pretty hard out there...

Four days ago we had a high of 90. Five days ago, a record-tying 93.

Tonight the forecast low is 38.

...how are those shutters coming along?

(GoodThoughtsGoodThoughtsGoodThoughts...)

Looks on radar like some of that Dallas rain is headed your way. Maybe our rain chant last night worked...

Went to the doctor yesterday; he couldn't find anything wrong with me and even the blip on the EKG vanished, but I was still having some shortness of breath. The current theory is anxiety, so I now have a prescription for low-dosage Celexa (actually the generic version thereof). Having taken it a couple of days now, I remember why I took it at night when I was on it for depression some years back -- a couple of hours after I take it, it's naptime. So tomorrow instead of taking it in the morning I'll take it in the evening after I come home. The shortness of breath is still there, but not as much as previously. Thanks to everyone who wished me well...

We broke our string of 100-degree days; Thursday only got up to 99, and Saturday only to 98. Friday, though, got up to 101, and today it was 100. So we're 10 for the last 12 on 100-degree days (and the weekend was when it was supposed to cool off to the low 90s).

Dinsdale is looking up at me and meowing, probably for attention. He's doing pretty well, as near as I can tell, though he's due back at the vet's for a checkup sometime this week.

I have a showstopper -- one verse and chorus -- I'm preparing for Conestoga next weekend. I've been dithering about whether to post it or leave it entirely a surprise, but there's only a couple of people I can think of offhand who'll be there who read my journal, so I'll probably post it in a bit. I certainly hope the drive to and from Tulsa is cooler than the drive to/from OKC was last weekend -- OKC has been having even worse heat than Waco (isn't it supposed to get cooler as you go farther north?).

...seeing as how it's worse elsewhere, but I'm going to anyway.

It's Too Damn Hot.

Eight straight days over 100 degrees, and another one forecast (depending on who you listen to) for tomorrow and for Friday. (The National Weather Service seems to be the lone holdout for 99 tomorrow.)

Ack.