It was hurricane-like... I was blown away!!! MOSI rocks!

This weekend, I endured hurricane force winds, stood in the base of an EF-0 tornado, got struck by lightning and survived an earthquake, saw hail being formed... To heck with that blasted Dewvoid. If weather won't exist around me, I will go to a place where the weather is all fake. lol I went to MOSI in Tampa yesterday, where they have the permanent exhibit called "Disasterville".

DISASTERVILLE featuring Bay News 9 WeatherQuest. MOSI's newest permanent exhibition, Disasterville, combines educational and interactive fun while teaching the remarkable science behind natural disasters. Disasterville will immerse you in nine natural disasters: floods, hail, hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, wildfires, volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunami.

Imagine my reaction after reading that on the brochure in the lobby of my hotel (The place is like a weather geek's dream come true. I was as good as there!!!)... I had heard about MOSI's hurricane chamber and wanted to experience that, but then, reading about everything else that they had there, it was my destiny. I had to experience Disasterville. I was all set for my all weather experience (I will mention in a bit about the lack of real weather in my location, during my trip, since that is a story unto itself.) As for the hurricane chamber, it was awesome, but it was more like hurricane force gusts since it wasn't sustained winds (I wish it had been!!!)... but it was still awesome, having 74 mph gusts slam against me, and despite the worker's advice, bf and I decided to stand in the chamber, and the workers who told us not to, were kind enough to take pics. That was before we even got inside the museum! I was going to love this place! So, we go inside and find out exactly where Disasterville is... and head straight for it! As we approach, we see they have a Tesla Coil set up with a fence, and people were standing behind the fence allowing the charge to strike their hands. That's what I'm talking about, a little CD to get the party started... that's Coil to Dew for all those wondering. The charge was incredibly tingly, and you could smell the ozone. Very cool stuff. As if that wasn't enough though, they were kind enough to let us operate the baton to create the charge. I don't know if they are supposed to allow that, but I am so glad they did. Here is a pic of bf playing with the Tesla Coil... I think we have a storm chaser in the making folks. He was eating up all this weather geekiness. I didn't think I would ever get him away from the Tesla Coil. Moving on from there... we went to the flash flood, wildfire, earthquake, tsunami, hail, volcano section, which didn't interest me near as much as the tornado section, which was right in front of me. First, I experienced a tornado chamber. I felt slightly claustrophobic, but it was so worth it. I can't remember how high the winds got, but it was pretty thrilling to have wind rotating around me in the vortex chamber. I could have stayed in there all day... seriously, but there were more to see and not much time remaining. I raced over to the "water spout" which was similar to the water tornadoes you buy as novelty gifts in a jar... They were huge though. I wish they had those in the gift shop. I would love to have one in my living room. Sadly, they were not available as souvenirs. It would have been perfect... sigh. I left that and went to Mist-er Twister, which had a platform that I could actually stand on and be in the base of this rotating moisture... a tiny self contained gustnado. I would love to have a pet gustnado. Unfortunately, those were not available in the gift shop either. They've got some nerve. That settles it though... I will just have to recreate it on a smaller scale for my own SDS therapy. Every SDS treatment facility needs a Mist-er Twister. The whole Disasterville experience was complete awesomeness!

As for the rest of the story... I got a text and subsequent call from Meso Mike on Saturday, letting me know that storms were firing well to my northwest and to my southwest, and that middle Florida... you know, where I happened to be stranded in a gymnasium all day, was the only place in the country with a tornadic outlook... Of course, my exact location didn't even get rain from that... to the point where the musician at the Jazz Club I went to that night said... I thought we were supposed to get rain today... I guess they were wrong. We sure could use the rain. I felt like standing up and apologizing to everyone in there for stealing their much needed rain. The Jazz club was great though, terrific food, music, great atmosphere. We had a great time, dancing and listening to the live band. Then, yesterday, I got reports of hail about an hour to my east and a horrible storm to my southwest that interfered with Mini-Dew and Mr. X's travel plans. Mini-Dew said (and I quote), "Mommy, you should have seen it. It looked like there was going to be a tornado! The sky was black!" Of course it was, Mini-Dew, I wasn't THERE! Seriously, Ma Nature, must you taunt me so??? On the flip side, I got lots of calls this weekend from people who were watching the re-airing of the HDD (Happy Dew Dance) on the Dew-ified "Twister Sisters" episode... good grief, as if they first time wasn't embarrassing enough, we've got re-runs. I actually was told by my mom that my dad was in Tifton on Friday when a funnel cloud dropped from the clouds... good grief.

The cold front has rolled in and pressed on southward. Temps are not expected to climb much at all today, and we are looking at a forecast of freezing temps (at least briefly) as the low for tonight. Yuck! Wet weather is expected mid-week. I really love Bryan's AFDs... very thorough... He got really excitable when describing the potential weather event on Wednesday night/Thursday morning...

CONFIDENCE IS HIGH IN A WIDESPREAD RAIN EVENT FOR OUR AREA WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND THURSDAY MORNING AS THE GULF LOW TRACKS NORTHEAST ACROSS EASTERN PORTIONS OF OUR AREA. SOME OF OUR AREA COULD GET SOME MUCH-NEEDED HEAVY RAIN (1-2 INCHES). AT THIS TIME IT LOOKS LIKE THE WARM SECTOR WILL REMAIN JUST SOUTH OF OUR AREA...WHICH IS A GOOD (Bryan is obviously not experiencing SDS symptoms...lol) THING SINCE THE DEEP LAYER SHEAR WILL BE TREMENDOUS (60-70 KT!) (Yes, he actually an exclamation mark to emphasize shear). IT STILL BEARS WATCHING AS A NORTHWARD SHIFT IN THE LOW TRACK COULD BRING A SHORT DURATION OF MARGINAL INSTABILITY (AND THE THREAT OF SEVERE WEATHER) TO OUR COASTAL AREAS (notice... not where I am).

Well, that's all folks.

Have a lovely Monday.
~Dewdrop