Heads Up.

They'd been saying tomorrow, but a quick look at the radar says we really might start to see overnight all that mess that's wrapped folks west of here sideways around their flagpoles, and night is never good—we're getting preapocalyptic warnings like we don't always get around here, and friends and relatives are sending hailstone pictures from Oklahoma and Atlanta—just last week, it seems, we had the storm of storms, and here we go once more. Maybe I don't well remember much pre-Toad. Maybe spring is always thus. Maybe the digital age enables panic at levels much more highly ratcheted than before. Still. I have not liked the look of the sky since mid-afternoon, and it was sunny then, but hazy and half-doomed out west. And this wind—this far in front of a storm—if this was a weather blog, I'd want to be in the business of warning folks without causing undue panic. I'd want to say, Something is not quite right in the breeze. It is not just the new sound of new leaves. Something is headed our way, and it is not the Toad's new teeth, nor his new fever, nor his fuss. The radar is lit yellow and red for hundreds of miles. Hunker down, I'd say. Know where your matches are. Have a plan. Find the leashes. You will never need any of this, but know it all just in case.

Here in the Gate City the wind goes on and on and so do the sirens, the trains, the traffic, the air handlers atop the state credit union building. We get ready. We eye our grills, our hand-hewn outbuildings. We sip on a wee dram. The clouds build in from funny directions, directions that have not that much to do with the wind. We prepare. It'll storm. We just don't know in what fashion.