Summer Storm

I was walking the mile and a half to the library to return a sack of three books.  The sky was partly cloudy overhead, but there was a dark patch of clouds to the southeast.  However, as the wind was coming from the west, I felt relatively safe. 

By the halfway point in my walk, the wind shifted and was blowing from the south.  Dark clouds filled the eastern sky.  Here is a photograph I took looking north.

El Greco captured a similar skyscape in his famous painting of Toledo.

The wind quickly shifted again and now blew from the east.  The wall of dark clouds began moving my way. 

Gray clouds at the bottom of the cloud bank sped over me and began to swirl. Cold gusts of wind hit me, knocking my baseball cap off my head.  Distant tornado sirens blared.  I hoofed it with all haste and reached Wal-Mart as fat raindrops began to fall.

Taking refuge in the Wal-Mart parking garage, I determined to wait out the storm.  I had an hour and a half until the library closed at 5:00 p.m.; the rain would surely let up well before then, I thought.  I was mistaken.  The rain came down hard and steady until shortly after 5:00 p.m. when my son drove up to give me and my sack of library books a ride home.