Chez Turner was the proverbial Napping House Where No One Is Sleeping.

At 11:30, our weather radio sounded an alarm, slowly waking me (and Travis, unfortunately) from a deep slumber. I had bought it a few years ago after the tornado raced by our house, but I’m still not used to hearing it at night.

Severe weather was on the way, said the announcement. I looked at the radar to see a nasty squall line marching east towards us. Not being in a mood sleep at that point, I waited until the squall line passed by, which was mostly with a whimper as far as we were concerned. It was back to bed for me.

Around 2:15 the radio sounded again: another severe weather watch. How coould there could be anything left after that nasty-looking line earlier? I was in a daze so I simply silenced the alarm and returned to bed.

Near 4 AM the alarm sounded yet again. I don’t remember the message but I soon took it seriously as all hell began to break loose outside. Strong winds and rain pounded us for 20 minutes. Then, as suddenly as it had arrived it vanished. Calm once again reigned supreme.

That’s when the train decided to make its southerly run. At 4:15. Ouch. We don’t usually have late-night trains but the past two weeks or so have had plenty.

They say tornadoes sound like freight trains, and I might have been worried here. This train, though, had a horn that was all too apparent at 4 in the morning. We’ve trained the train drivers so well to honk at us that they always say hello when they pass by. Sometimes they forget what time it is, though, and their usually-friendly honking is not as welcome at such an early hour! The engineer gave a sharp honk right next to us before continuing down the track. After cringing at the horn (our neighbors must love us), I settled back to sleep.

There were not enough snoozes available this mornoing to make up for all the early-morning fun. I hope I can keep my eyes open today.

For those weather geeks out there, you can see the storm’s progresion nicely on my weather station’s barometric graphs.