Brilliant sunset follows Chincoteague tornado warning

Nellie Lankford lay at a dock in Chincoteague Bay last Saturday when a bruising dark sky started gathering to the west. Eastward over Assateague Island and Chincoteague Bay, bright September sunshine spilled out of a blue sky studded with puffy white clouds.

Then our phones started blaring with a weather alert.  Wunderground announced that the dark line to the west had the potential to spawn a tornado where we were and we needed to seek protection. Surrounded by marsh and water and a little bit of high ground, we watched the blackening sky moving to the northeast and looked for a ditch to hunker down in if we started seeing a funnel come our way.

John was a few miles away and said he saw a waterspout over the Atlantic. And what's a waterspout but a tornado over the water gathering up moisture and losing torque in the process.

Weather is so dynamic. It electrifies the pores, intensifies colors, adds drama to day-to-day life.

When the clock passed the tornado-warning period, we left the dock and motored northward into a shallow and isolated bay called Brockotonorton just off the main stem of Chincoteague Bay.

With the storm still threatening, I let out 80 feet of chain in five feet of water to make sure the anchor had ample scope. When the rain came, it fell hard and steady but without much wind driving it left or right. Nellie held tight and enjoyed the cleaning torrents.

Then, as the clock marched on, a setting sun finally pierced the stormy curtain and gave us a memorable finale to the day.

Based on the way my sinuses have felt ever since, that easterly marching cold front with tornado potential must have swept up pollen, smoke particles and lots of other stuff from the west coast's wildfires to the midwest's flowers and blossoming weeds and dropped here on the eastern edge of the continent to torment those of us sensitive to allergens like that.  Here it is Thursday, five days later, and my glands are still swollen, my head is achy, my nose is running, my eyes are steady weeping and my throat's holding fire from that post-storm sunset.

Apparently I'm not the only one.  Lots of people in Delaware's Cape Region are reporting similar symptoms and misery.

The only thing funny about it is the old joke my old man used to tell during hay fever season.  He'd say "Boy - is your nose running? Are your feet smelling?  Dang son, you must be built upside down."

Humor and sunsets, bacon and eggs, chocolate and vanilla.  Lots of good stuff.