EML oh EML.

My severe weather phobia hit a fever pitch starting about five days ago when I read in the extended SPC forecast that the Northeast was going to have a severe weather event with a possible EML on Wednesday. For those of you who don't know what that means(may it strike fear in your hearts!), basically a plume of extremely dry mid-level air from those places where they get horrible tornadoes all the time blows in our direction, making it so we get ridiculous levels of instability that we normally don't see in this part of the country. (EML stands for "elevated mixed layer".) They're not exactly common, but an EML was responsible for the EF-4 tornado that did major damage to the town just to the south of my hometown in 1989, plus the only time the SPC ever put the Northeast in a "high" risk for severe thunderstorms in 1998, and the Worchester tornado in 1953, and Joplin tornado, and so on... I freaked out basically for five days, culminating in a complete inability to sleep... I mean, I can convince myself that I'm making a big deal over nothing most of the time, but when you have something like that on the horizon?

And now look what happened in Massachusetts. =_= Granted, the models all showed the bad tornado parameters mysteriously disappearing as soon as the storms passed Litchfield County, but I don't think anybody was really prepared for what happened to the north of us. It's like the Hamden tornado all over again, but to the north. I can only hope it's another 20+ years before anything like that happens again...it's amazing how damage a tornado outbreak can do in a state like MA...no wonder they list it as the state with the #2 highest risk from tornadoes, right under Indiana...and CT is #13 or something...

I also reread The Neverending Story in two days. It really is an amazing book.