When I took this, I was still wearing a cast on my foot and shooting out of the car window. But it was nice of my husband to drive me around.

This particular day, as we left the house for an aimless drive, he said, “I feel like looking around in northwest Lubbock” so we headed across town on what seemed like a Regular Adventure. We were under a thunderstorm watch and could see clouds on the northwest horizon, but it didn’t seem like anything was going to happen where we were – our skies were clear.

However, we misjudged the weather and while we were out the storm built up. It built up a lot. Our Regular Adventure was turning into a Big-Ass Weather Event; while we were heading home, our phones alerted us to a tornado warning and (this is the fun part!) the funnel that had been sighted was uncomfortably close to us. We made it home just as the edge of the storm got to our house. The tornado watch lasted for what seemed like days – the tornado sirens were activated, the phone alerts were frequent – but when the storm passed all we’d gotten was a lot of marble-size hail and a couple of inches of rain. Other parts of town (specifically the parts where I’d been taking photos just an hour or so before) were hit by one or two of the eight tornadoes that the storm spawned.

All in all, it was a much more exciting evening than we’d planned.

Lubbock, Texas
photographed 6.5.2025

PS: Go here to see what the storm looked like.