Watching a thunderstorm form and unfold is dramatic. I am grateful to be spared the devastation that continues to impact people on the east side of the Hudson River.
Billowing cumulonimbus clouds crowd the sky like quilted fabric in every shade of gray.
Heat lightning is barely visible in humid smog. Rumble of thunder mixes with rumble of traffic to and from NYC along the Hudson. Gaps in the silhouettes of giant oaks reveal glimpses of the river. Their crowns sway in the northwest wind which carries the impending storm visibly closer.
Birds (pigeons?) ride the wind currents to their roosts. The TV flickers Weather Channel radar - green, yellow, red. A stray rain drop finds its way through the tattered screen mesh, the holes reminiscent of tiny feathers.
I lower the window, watching the quilted grays rearrange their pattern - is that a funnel shape?
I’ve only experienced one tornado. The sky had turned the purple-puce color of bruised skin. The still, eerie calm and the impulsive violent burst of wind that roared like a freight train and kept the doors from closing. Ten terrifying minutes seemed an eternity. And then it was over. Nature’s tantrum was replaced by blue sky and sun, as if nothing had happened. Except for that swatch of twisted limbs, trunks, metal frames and other carcasses of anything unable to get out of the way.
This storm is not a tornado. The thunder and lightning are audibly closer - about four miles away, according to the thunder-lightning calculator. The quilt pattern has changed again. The wind is shifting, making the treetops undulate in a hula.
The clouds release the rain in a burst of slanted drops so closely packed they look like sheets of water, angled toward my now completely shut window. Foggy trees hula in a rain and mesh blurred screen against an opaque gray background. The sky is indistinguishable from the river below.
The storm builds to a crescendo then levels off. The rain steadies, the wind becomes a breeze and the sky becomes lighter, but still opaque. Trees, sky and river are more visible
I open the window, listen to the thunder carry the storm away and watch misty rain abate until the screen has just a few bubbles of water droplets clinging to the mesh.