Winnie the Pooh's Got Nothing on This Blustery Day

Today has been one of those days when weather dominates. At this writing (about 5:30 pm), it hasn't yet rained. But the wind has been absolutely ferocious around Gainesville. I was due for a long run today, but I decided to forgo the blustery outdoors in favor of a "kindler, gentler" indoor setting: the treadmill at my local YMCA. While I was running my eight miles there, I looked out on the pool area, which faced the exercise room. There were lap swimmers on the right and a few families in the shallow end on the left. Around the pool was an assortment of plastic lounge chairs, upright chairs, and tables. Taking in the scenery while listening to my MP3 music helps to relieve the monotony traditionally associated with treadmill running. Today, though, I didn't anticipate anything remotely exciting. That suddenly changed, though, when I saw a lounge chair suddenly move by itself about ten feet to the left, resembling a scene from the movie Poltergeist. But that was just a forerunner of a different cinematic association. For a couple of minutes later, the poolside scene resembled the tornado segment of The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy frantically ran back to her farm as the sky darkened and objects flew up all around. Only here it was several lounge chairs being lifted into the air and crashing back down, with some of their backs torn off. And just on the other side of the glass window from me, a medium-size circular plastic table lifted into the air and crashed into the glass door to my left, miraculously avoiding breaking it, after which it was thrown into a bush about 15 feet away. As suddenly as this mini-windstorm came on, it ended just as quickly. A couple of minutes later, a lifeguard nonchalantly walked around the area, returning chairs and tables to their original places and reattaching the backs to the lounge chairs. I was just relieved that no one was hit by flying chairs during the gale burst, because there was a strong potential for injury there. The winds continued to come and go with occasional strong gusts, and the situation continues to remain the same.

I understand that there are two storm systems at play here, including the one that swept through the Midwest and South, killing at last count 32 people from tornadoes. There is a tornado watch for my area through the night, which is expected to see an intensification of the storminess...