Well, I guess so. Supposedly they’re pretty common here. Luckily we did make it through our first summer here without any sirens (besides the ones that go off on the first Wednesday of every month at 11 AM). Some of you may know that my brother Mark is a famous meteorologist – check out his show Lightning Rod!! – so when we moved here he gave us a weather alert radio (something like that link). It gives us messages when there are weather alerts, so we know when the big thunderstorms or downpours on the way home from synagogue are going to strike. I also have the Weather Channel desktop on my computer and that gives me alerts as well. For example, right now it is telling me there is a Rangeland Fire Statement until tomorrow at 10:15 AM. Hmm.
In any event, the weather in Overland Park is pretty fickle. There’s some kind of joke about it – if you don’t like the weather wait 10 minutes and it will be different. Something like that. In other words it rains, or it pours, but 10 minutes later the sun is out. In the spring, it might have been raining at my house but not at school by the time I got there for pickup. Right now, it is pretty cool in the mornings, but hot in the afternoons. And yes, sometimes it’s windy. But it’s not the Wizard of Oz most of the time, if at all, here in Overland Park.
I did hear that last winter was our coldest in quite awhile – we were apoligized to multiple times about that one – so hopefully this coming winter won’t be quite as bad!