big open skies

Yesterday, there was a small buzz about what the weather was bringing in. I've lived here for over a year now and am only vaguely used to how things ebb and flow. I grew up with earthquakes, but little to no humidity and basically two seasons. I never had problems with allergies and I didn't have to use nearly as many hair products to make it look good when I actually style it. San Antonio has brought a great many changes into my life.

I looked at www.weather.com because you can get an hour by hour forecast. This crazy storm was supposed to roll in at night, unleash it's fury on the area, and be gone by the morning. In California, this kind of thing was very atypical, as far as my experience goes. There's something about Texas and the big open skies that makes it feel like you can literally watch weather systems move in and out. It honestly may just be that in Riverside, the smog and haze that hangs over everything dillutes the possibility of this experience. Storms are definitely different here though. Thunder and lightening are a rare occurence and certainly never appear the same way they do here. Even just plain rain is different. The skies can open up and flood the streets in twenty minutes and then dissipate back into hot sunshine.

Anyway, this storm was supposed to come in about 9 pm and be gone by the time I was leaving for work, which incidently, is pretty freaking early to me sometimes. I was at Starbucks at 4 pm and saw the sky get grayer and grayer, but it wasn't overwhelmingly storm like. It was still about 80 degrees and not even misty much less rainy.

When I was leaving my store at a little after 9 pm, the lightening had started. As I drove home, the wind picked up. You know those news stories with the reporters standing in the rain and the wind is blowing so hard they can barely stand still? That's what came in by 10 pm. And then at midnight, I woke up because of the lightnening and thunder, even though I have literal blackout drapes in my room. I stood at the window and watched the lightening light up the sky to brighter than daylight because there was so much. It was pouring down rain, and the wind was making it flow sideways from the sky. It. Was. Crazy.

This morning, I went outside to go to work and I wasn't sure what to expect. The sky was beautiful with the broken clouds and the sun just starting to rise making it all different shades of blue. The ground is saturated, but the air is calm.

And that is the difference in weather between Riverside and San Antonio.