Saturday's Weather Surprises

First, a close-up of the sweetest surprise, as seen from our kitchen window. I hope lots of Portlanders got to see this beauty which hung around for a few minutes. Looking from inside the arc, I see purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. Maybe the seventh color, indigo, is there, but I can't say for sure.


Now, a close-up of the rain and hail that arrived with a shocking swiftness and well before the huge rainbow.


Not long before 4 p.m., looking out the window beside Mama's recliner where she sat taking a nap, I noticed it had started to rain, so I stood up to check the open window there and in the kitchen--not raining in either one. Then I walked into the bathroom to check that window. Pulling it shut against increasing rain drops, I turned to head back to the living room. Before I could get out the bathroom door and into the hall, I heard hail blasting the windows, blasting with sound but not breaking the glass though I have no doubt that if it had been larger hail, broken glass would have resulted. When I stepped back into the living room, the screeching had woke Mama. In a matter of minutes--Mama and I estimate four at the most--the rain left us surrounded by quiet--until lightning and thunder that must have been nearly right above us jolted us. Then a few minutes later the TV broadcasted a severe thunderstorm warning for all of the metropolitan counties. We later learned on the evening news that trees were down across the area, and 30,000 were without electricity. On Sunday at 5 p.m. 1,800 still did not have power. This is not Portland weather--its' more like what we were used to in Mississippi.

Not long after the severe thunderstorm warning, I noticed darkening skies in the distance, first out a living room window ...


... then out the kitchen window. Wistfully, I said to Mama, "There must be a rainbow somewhere."


An hour and a half later as I walked by the kitchen window, I glanced out and hollered, "Oh, there's a rainbow!" Quickly I grabbed my camera, sat at the window and took picture after picture, hoping to get a good one of the widest rainbow I can remember.

It disappeared behind the Rose Plaza on the north ...


... and another apartment building a block away to the south.