From the OED:

Of, pertaining to, or of the nature of a tornado.

1884 Amer. Meteorol. Jrnl. I. 7 Four series of storms of tornadic character have passed over the states east of the Mississippi River since the beginning of the year. 1890 Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch 13 June, These are tornadic conditions. 1898 H. W. LUCY in Daily News 18 Feb. 2/2 Mr. Orchardson’s portrait..presenting the ex-Speaker in one of his not unfamiliar tornadic moods.

“Tornadic” is not a word I was familar with before moving to the American Midwest. Now I hear it fairly frequently. Tonight the local television stations pre-empted quite a bit of prime-time programming to keep us up to date on the weather. Talking heads and brightly colord maps do not make for exciting watching, let me tell you. A dramatic storm with golf-ball-sized hailstones passed over us about an hour ago. No tornados, though.

Has a tornado ever hit a big city downtown? Hmm.

P1010036

Originally uploaded by ghwpix.

“Hello Boss” canned coffee, which I bought at the new location for the Chinatown Food Market, a stone’s throw from the City Market. It says it’s made in Taiwan, but I think that’s Vietnamese underneath the word coffee.

Click on the image for more pix.

An entry from Kansas City Soil on local high school kids attempting to establish a student government:

Geoffery annd Leodis, and a couple of other kids, have been making some real progress. They’ve even come up with a preamble, which they submitted to the school’s vice principal for approval. The text includes the word “totalitarian” — as in “the totalitarian school administration” — and when the vice principal saw this she demanded to know what it meant.

“Totalitarian,” Geoffery replied, kind of shoocked. “You know, like total control.”

Apparently, the VP didn’t believe him. Or whatever. I’m not reallly sure. All I know is that she went to her office and looked the word up. And the next day, she demanded that the word be removed from the preamble.

I’m not sure if I need to offer more analysis here to convey the many levels of irony.

We woke up to between 3 and 5 inches of snow. And it’s still coming down.