Lunchtime Survival: Storms, Severe Weather in Buffalo, New York

From where I sit in my office a little bit outside of Buffalo, NY, it's hard to get a good look at the windows. I can see a slice of a window when I lean back a little bit, but not nearly enough to get a real feel for outside. So when a heavy pounding started this afternoon on the roof of the building, I thought to myself "that cannot possibly be rain."

Boy, was I wrong. When I stood up from my seat and walked towards the windows, there was already a small group of people standing and looking out, mouths agape. We're used to inclement weather here in New York, there are more snow jokes about Buffalo made on "Late Night With..." than there are Michael Jackson Jokes, but this downpour was something different, it was painful looking.

All this and I was heading out to lunch in a few minutes. But yet I persisted. I hadn't happened to bring a lunch, and I needed to go out and buy something. That was my first mistake. I should have known better, I was parked in the back of the parking lot and it's a pretty far way to walk. With no coat, I took a deep breath and went for it. Lets just say I am glad that I had an undershirt on because my white dress shirt was soaked through by the time I made it to my car, the same car that I had left to windows open to because it was 85 degrees when I parked it this morning.. Needless to say, everything in the drivers side of my car was soaked through, including my seat, which I did not realize until I was sitting in it, driving, and I felt it seeping into my body.

Also, I must stress, that it was raining so hard the there were large unavoidable pools of water in the parking lot which I had to walk through, so my feet were also drenched. All of this, and the fact that it was, like I said, raining so hard that it was painful, made for a great 1 hour escape from work.

When I came back from lunch, the rain had subsided slightly, but my hair was still matted down to my head. I was still soaked wet from the 45 seconds or so that I had actually been out in the rain. I walked back into work, and tried to comb my hair a little bit while I could still get a comb through it. After sitting down, I rocked back a little bit in my car to look out the window and was completely amazed at what I saw.