Chicago Storm

My journey home today. I saw the clouds rolling in at about 5.15 pm.  And rolling is the right word, for they twisted like bread dough and swirled in among themselves.

They shape shifted, gaining in thickness and dimension, undulating around pressures dispersant and attractive.

Foolishly, I left the office, thinking I could get home in the middle of the storm and take pictures.  This was at 5.30 pm.

The streets were crowded with people trying to beat the storm.  I made the 5.43 Metra and climbed onto the second floor, my camera in my pocket, hoping to get some shots from the window of the train.  This, sadly, was the best I could get.

This is a picture, through the Metra’s green tinted glass, of the storm raging around the train car, the sound of the tornado sirens blaring, the flashes of the lightning crashing around us, and the frustration of being stuck on the train in this very spot for the next two hours under this enormous streel structure holding a billboard for, I believe, Wrigley Gum.

Finally, we were let off the train and left standing, wondering, all several hundred of us, what to do.  I let the crowd decide while I admired the sky.  The storm had broken, at least for the moment, and at least from the west.

The crowd started moving towards the underpass to get to the train which was sent to rescue us.

On this side, I could see far more clearly the fractured state of the sky, and the cracks where light and color were determined to burst through.

And then I turned to face not one, but two, rainbows.  If only I had a wide-angle SLR, instead of my little Canon powder blue PowerShot from Target.  (I love you, little PowerShot.)

But in Rogers Park, somebody forgot to tell the storm it was finished.  It still wanted to play.  This is what the sky looked like when I got off the train.

And this is how the sky in the west looked when the train pulled away.

This is the view facing south, where the next Metra train was coming (the 5.50 perhaps?  It was only 8.30 at this time. . .).

I walked down from the platform and faced continued passion from the east.

Even turning the corner and walking south did nothing to ease the tormented clouds.

Further south, the east was turning around in its agony for a last windy howl.

Dream on, baby.  Blow your cool breeze on me.