High winds and grey skies over the beach today -- someone said yesterday's early morning rain was so thick they couldn't see the far side of their deck; May came back from the shops this morning with news that there's scant few leaves still clinging to any branches and we can feel the howl and hum of the wind through the wires on our antenna. Welcome to late-autumn on the Great Lakes.

By the time it comes around back to October and November, I think we've forgotten really how many ships and crew have been lost to the weather on the Lake; to give the rest of you a peek at what we put up with over the Storm Season, Tom Boyle has some sky-pics posted from a Ferndale point of view ...

From a vantage point just south of the storm I could see its cyclonic shape and inside of it was trapped an interesting cloud formation the shape of a big fat cigar. In a period of three minutes I experienced a 180 degree shift in the wind direction form northerly to southerly. Associated lightening striking over the Bay added to the show.

[ via A Storm ]