Not something you particularly want to hear.

That’s the local siren that goes off during severe weather, with wind and cicadas in the background, sounding at about 3:45 this afternoon. I don’t actually know its official meaning, but my interpretation is, watch out for tornadoes, bub. So I did, at least through the north-facing windows of my home office, with occasional peeks southward.

We got a fair amount of rain and some lightning for the rest of the afternoon, though I’ve seen worse. As of early evening, we’ve been visited by no tornadoes or even damaging winds. In fact, by 6 the sun was out again. Just another passing summer storm, though we haven’t seen many this year.

Years ago I knew an Englishman, a Mancunian if I remember right, who was living temporarily in Nashville. One of the things that impressed him about America — frightened him, sometimes — was the violent thunderstorms, he said.

That gave me pause. It was hard to imagine not having much experience with that kind of weather. Guess the UK doesn’t get quite as many thunderstorms as North America, especially in the north part of the country, though of course sometimes the British Isles do get thumped by winds (such as in 1987, the reason we couldn’t visit Kew Gardens the next year). Massive thunderstorms were definitely a part of growing up in South Texas, especially come spring, and living in both Tennessee and Illinois.