The red band of thunderstorms is between us and St. Louis
Marco and I (or at least I; Marco entertains me by talking to me about it) have always watched weather radar, waiting for the colors indicating harder rain to hit us. I watch it because I like the rain and Marco and I like to drive on flooded roads in our trucks, but I digress…
We rarely get the “red” radar images in the Bay Area. The weather radar uses colors from green to indicate light rain, to yellow to orange to red to indicate severe rain. Bernadette and I are in Jefferson City, Missouri visiting her family for Christmas and the Sharks happened to be playing in St. Louis this weekend. It’s a two hour drive from here to St. Louis, which we always have to take in order to get to and from the airport. This time, however, there was a severe band of thundershowers between us and St. Louis, including flash flood warnings and tornado watches. Good stuff.
There’s not much to this story aside from us driving through some of the hardest rain I’ve ever been in, but there are several things I noticed during the drive:
- Missouri highways are very well maintained; I remember when I lived in Washington and was driving west on I-90 between Issaquah and Eastgate. There was some pouring rain and I started to hydroplane in the tire ruts. Granted, I probably had nearly bald tires on my old Honda Accord, but that’s a different story.
- On the two-lane I-70 highway, drivers are quite good about keeping to the right except to pass.
- There are many idiots that don’t drive with their lights on when it’s raining; sure this is now a law in California (and in several other states), but it’s common sense.
- I only saw one Prius. I feel like on my 10 mile commute to work, I see no less than a dozen Priuses… I’ll have to count next time
Somehow I figured this would be more interesting when I thought about writing it vs me actually writing it now. Sorry about that. I do have a queued post in my head about car taillight colors, though. I know everyone’s excited about that.
Posted by kellyhirano 
