Toranaders

Yesterday was one of those Nebraska days that you could safely bet the farm on a good chance of a tornado watch. Warm. Very humid. More milk in the sky than in the cows.

Sure enough, around noon, the watch box showed up on my computer, now hooked up and purring in my car as I sat in a truck stop south of Lincoln. (I was playing work hookie because I was so sure that something was going to happen!)

I scanned the skies looking for a thunderhead, as we used to call them. We don't call them thunderheads in storm spotter school--they are build ups with features like overshooting tops and mammus under the anvil and flanking lines and lowerings and of course, wall clouds. A wall cloud is a tornado's nest. If you find a good wall cloud, your chances of seeing a tornado improve dramatically.

The key word is "chances." I am almost 60 and have spent most of my life in Nebraska and have never really "seen" one. In my flying days, I have seen the famous "hook return" on radar that indicates one, but as far as seeing one actually form and roar down from the sky like a freight train and destroy a barn or tie a pivot irrigation system into a perfect sqare knot, put me in the nada column.

Not for him.

We had a debrief, which is code for "let's go get something to eat" at the local Village Inn after the all clear came from emergency management. I decied to attend the debrief for my first time. The head dog had signed me out with lots of praise on what good reporting I did for the day. No, there were no tornados today--just build-ups with overshooting tops and flanking lines and rain foots and hail shafts. Interesting but boring.

"Seen about sixty of 'em," the spotter across the table from me said. "Ya don't want to see one." The guy next to him knodded in agreement.

"Why not?" I asked. "That would be a kick!"

"They're loud, it's dirty when ya get close, and they'll scare the hell out a ya," he said as he turned his pointing fork from my face and back to his hot beef sandwich. He is a tradesman--kind of a simple, salt of the Nebraska earth kind of guy--no bull except what waited under the bread covered with brown gravey on his plate. He didn't care if I believed him or not. I did.

It takes a special breed of alley cat to volunteer to go sit on top of a hill and wait for Mother Nature to throw some of her best stuff at you. Don't expect any credit. This is a blue collar guy's volunteer job or a weather scientist or a nut like me. The guys looking for credit and a story with pictures in the paper praising their vounteer work, are not found in this group.

"Was out where you was several times," he continued. "Good spot for one to set down. Was looking back South from there onces when they called and asked if could confirm a funnel sighting. "No, clearing South," I said into the mike.

"Then it dawned on me that there was a little something going on," he continued. "It was getting loud and the stop sign was twisting sideways so fast I couldn't read the stop. I had one of them moonroofs and looked up just as the tornader came down and touched down in the field right next to me. It was loud and dirt was flying everywhere. I punched the mike button and told 'em I had a funnel on the ground next to me and got the hell outta there."

I smiled. He put the fork back into the mashed potatos.

He told me about other ones he had seen. Big F-4's. Skinny rope ones. Conical ones that jumped out from behind a rain foot to surprise him. We compared notes about the monster that ate Grand Island many years ago. He was on the ground. I was in the air. We both saw it but I was looking at it on radar and he was on the ground dancing with the single-legged devil.

"Patterns are changin," he said. They are movin more East."

He explained the places that usually had some tornado action each year. He laid the tracks out as if they were maps to his favortie fishing holes. He drew visual lines in my mind across the Nebraska countryside. He backed up his case with dates and tornado events I recalled instantly. When he was through, I had no doubt my spotter position was the yellow line on Nebraska's tornado highway. If he was right, Lincoln's time was running out. It was just a matter of time.

"Your spot should be a good one if ya wanna see one," he said as he finished his cherry pie. "Personally, I seen enough." The other guy nodded again.

Maybe I have seen enough, too.