Tuesday, July 08, 2003
Storm of the Century
For whatever reason the other night, I had this dream about the ships in ID4. You know the ones: the huge-assed disks that burned the sky as they came through the atmosphere and positioned themselves over every major city.
I remember feeling the true xenophobic terror that the people in the movie must have felt if that situation were real, and wondered how I'd really feel if I ever saw anything like that personally.
Well, nature provided me with the answer this morning. I saw the biggest storm front I've ever seen in my life roll in today on the way into work. The leading edge of this storm had to be hundreds of miles across, and actually blotted out the sun. Here's a picture of what the contrast of the leading edge looked like against the sky. It was like you were heading into a black hole. It literally felt as if the sky were falling. I've never felt anything as alien as this in my life.
Then once you moved under it, it felt as if you were underwater, and the roiling clouds overhead was the surface of the ocean, way up above you. Again, an incredibly alien encounter.
Nobody at work ever remembers seeing a storm like this one.