Take a look at this tree. Pretty, isn’t it?

It sits in front of our house in Amarillo.

Check out the sky. It’s pretty, too — and blue, yes? I took this picture two days ago.

As I write this brief post, we are being pummeled by extremely cold wind from the northwest. Snow is falling in our neighborhood.

This comes not quite 24 hours after a mile-wide tornado — one of several that touched down northeast of us — tore across the flat land near Pampa. I heard from one of the local TV meteorologists this morning that damage was extensive. He’d stayed up until 3 a.m. today.

We got hail, a good bit of rain, a lot of wind — and upset stomachs — as we watched the news unfold outdoors.

The tornado and hail were more like what we get in the spring and early summer around here. However, as the weather guys told us last night, anything can happen at any time around here.

Boy howdy, y’all.

There’s a common quip in the Texas Panhandle that goes: If you don’t like the weather, just wait 10 minutes …

Well, it wasn’t exactly a 10-minute turnaround from the blue sky and pretty fall colors on the tree in our front yard.

It just seems like it.