Well, that was exciting.

Last night in and around Topeka, in fact pretty much all over NE KS, there was excitement. For me, it was the first time in my life I have ever gotten pictures of actual funnel clouds. We were lucky here--the tornadoes were mostly weak and not well organized. There was some hail damage, more on that later. In the meantime, views from the Blackbird Espresso Cafe, where Rich and I were joshing about the non-Rapture when the sirens sounded. Topeka was lucky; Reading, KS, in Lyon County, was not.

Before the storms, the sky to the south was blue with white clouds. Note the wind from the SW, though.

To the north, a whole different picture.

Unsettled skies.

Mammatus clouds, just a line of them against the blue and white. This is one of the most odd cloud formations I've ever taken a picture of, and one of the most interesting. Almost like an abstract of some kind.

View of the approaching storms looking to the northwest from the back door of the Blackbird.

Hail in front of the front door of the Bird. Rich's car was out there, but this hail was fairly small and he didn't get any damage. The hail was larger at my house, but my car didn't take any damage, either. Kathy wasn't quite so lucky; she was parked downtown while at work and her car is full of dents from golf ball sized hail.

Back at the back door again, and yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a funnel cloud. This one did not connect with the ground, and was coming from Auburn, SW of Topeka, and paseed south and east of us.

Another little straggle of a funnel. This was definitely a multiple-vortex storm.

It was frustrating being in the city with the view blocked by buildings and trees; but then again, it was raining and hailing and thundering and so forth, so I wouldn't have been wanting to stand out in the open somewhere either. Besides, we didn't really know at this point how strong these storms were going to get, or not.

Another small, weak funnel.

Very dramatic, very strange clouds, around to the front of the Bird again.

Just incredibly strange and wonderful.

Ah, and look--off to the ESE, there is the funnel from the other side now.

This is the shot everyone likes. You can see how feathery and light the funnel looks, but it's definitely a tornado. An EF-0 according to the NWS.

This was the size of the hail at the house, where the only damage noted was a lot of twigs and leaves littering the area around the trees, and some unhappy-looking iris and peonies. We were so lucky.

Tonight I am sad for Joplin, MO as well as Reading, KS. Joplin was hit by a mile-wide tornado right through the center of the city this evening, with massive damage and some unknown amount of loss of life.

It's Spring, and that means pretty flowers, baby birds, and terror in the skies.