There is this phenomenon created by all of the concrete in a downtown area that raises the temperature in the area a few degrees. This can mean that storms will pass around the area and leave the downtown mostly untouched.

Yesterday, the storm did not care about the concrete. It had a path and it was going to stay on it.

At just after 2 pm on Wednesday, we were sitting in our conference room that overlooks some parking ramps. We have a pretty good view of the north side of the city from there. One of my co-workers looked out the window and said "well, that does not look good..." We looked out and saw debris from trees floating above the roof of a 7 floor parking garage.

About 10 minutes later the emergency alert sirens sounded. We ended our meeting and left the room that is mostly windows to find a radio.

We learned that about the time we were seeing the tree debris there had been a tornado touch down on the south end of town.

As of now, nearly 18 hours later, there have been no injuries reported.

This is a picture taken by my cousin Andy. He was in South Minneapolis trying to drive home. He had to pull over to the side of the road since he could no longer see out of his windshield. It rained like this for a long time prior to the tornado and then again after.

Here is a picture from www.startribune.com taken by Richard Sennott. (not sure if it is okay to post this, I will take it down if I am told this is bad :) It is a picture of a South Minneapolis neighborhood where you can really see the damage to the trees. It's a tragedy so many beautiful trees were lost.

It is, after all, Tornado Season. This is the second time in 2 weeks the emergency alert sirens sounded.

How about a little humor to lighten this up a bit...

I was worried about how Heidi would be holding up through this storm. Since she goes to school right down the street from my office she was experiencing the same weather I was.

When we picked her up we wanted to know what she thought about going into the Tornado Shelter but we didn't want to right out tell her that there had been a tornado. We asked her if she had a Tornado Drill or Practice. Shannon asked if she left her room in the afternoon.

This lead to a lot of confusion as we all were expecting her to say she went in the shelter and didn't like it. Instead she told us they did not have a Practice and never left her room. Except for when she had to help Adnon get his puzzles.

Okay...

Then this morning on the way to school she said "yesterday, when we were in the Tornado Warning, the trees looked like they were going to fall over..."

Shawn said "So, you did go into the Tornado Shelter!"

Heidi said "No! We just had a Tornado Warning! We did not go into the Shelter!"

Shawn and I just looked at each other and laughed. I guess we didn't specifically ask if she had a Tornado Warning, we only asked if she had a Tornado Practice so that was the question she answered! Leave it to a four year old to be so literal!!