Storm chasing. I get it. When you live on the Great Plains, the sky is everywhere and everything. You look to the sky for cues about every aspect of your life. The sky is your ceiling, your roof. As Willa Cather once wrote, “The earth is the floor of the sky.” And you get a bit claustrophobic when you can’t see the sky. I lived back east and in the south for several years and felt … vulnerable … when I couldn’t see a vast expanse of sky. My son reported recently that when a storm warning in downtown Denver sent everyone scurrying inside for cover, his first instinct was to run outside and look up.
Perhaps you have to be a plains dweller to fully appreciate this; I don’t know. I just know I felt displaced and out of sync when I didn’t have a big sky. This is Mother Nature doing her thing on a grand scale, and she’s magnificent.
There’s a bit of footage after the end credits (enjoy the sound behind the credits), so don’t quit too soon. And consider watching the main video with the sound turned off. Personally I found the music distracting.
“floor of the sky” I like that phrase. If you’ve grown up around big sky, you need it or feel jammed in a box. Sky is a constantly changing art show – and watching it, you learn to be more accurate than weather guys on tv.
Cool video
Yep, you need it. Simple as that.
It struck me as I watched this video given the recent events regarding Pluto and our Universe as to how absolutely minute and insignificant our planet earth is in the scheme of things and yet from the surface of our planet the overwhelming awesomeness and beauty of natural events such as reflected in the video seem in complete contradiction to the reality of our insignificance. Surely a universal oxymoron on some level….?!
It’s almost incomprehensible by my puny human brain. We are such insignificant specks compared to these storms and all of earth’s natural events (not to mention the spans of time involved). All while this planet as a whole is so very insignificant in the universe. I’m not even a speck on a speck. Can you say “humbling”?
magnificent! I’m from the midwest (tornado country) and I understand needing to check the sky when a storm is coming. LOL – doesn’t everyone?
It certainly seems to me the logical thing to do. That’s where the danger is, or will be. Neil deGrasse Tyson says he never steps outside without looking up; but he’s looking up with the universe in mind. I always look up, too, but with the visible sky in mind.