We were on our way to church last night, around 5:20 pm. Our church is about 20 miles north of where we live. As we were approaching the northern edges of our town, I saw a dark line of nearly-black clouds approaching from the northwest. Every couple of seconds the entire bank of clouds lit up with internal lightening. My 2½ year old son in the back seat kept asking "what is that?"

For the Tolkien buffs out there, the oncoming line of thick, black clouds reminded me of the description given in the Lord of the Rings of the dark clouds that poured out of Mordor and blotted out the sun.

We drove another two miles or so north, and the wind started to pick up quite a bit. It wasn't raining yet. I voiced my doubts about the weather, and finally thought to turn on the radio. The first thing I heard was "we interrupt our regularly scheduled blah blah blah for this severe weather bulletin!" Then "tornado watch..."

We turned around and went back home.

We probably would have been okay, but it wouldn't have been fun. Our church is in Troy, Ohio, and they were getting hit by high winds, rain, and hail even as we set out. All we got in our town was gusty winds and a lot of rain.

Farther north, Van Wert, Ohio got hit by a tornado. The news reports this morning said there were five dead, and probably millions of dollars in damages. The tornado hit a cinema that was packed out for the evening matinee, but fortunately they had an early warning and moved everyone to the center of the building. No one was hurt there.