The Banshee - Weather Story for Meteorology 101

Elena Morales 12 Feb. 2010 Jack Bohl Metorology 101 Let me tell you a story that starts when I was a young girl, around the age of 18 or so. It was the late 1800’s and I was freshly married to an aspiring artist who obsessed with weather, particularly the sort of weather that caused devastation. Luka von Hessen was of German Nobility but did not live with his family in Hessen, near the Black Forest. Instead, he ventured off into the outer edges of the world, seeking and craving the disastrous nature of Mother Earth. During the first few month of our married life, Luka and I lived on the edge of a lake in the Netherlands, where he had heard stories of waterspouts (cousins of what I now know to be tornadoes), which were of gargantuan proportion, brewing up every year on the lake during the spring time. What he hadn’t heard of, unfortunately, were the tales of the twisters that also frequented the land. Luka purchased the lakeside villa and the surrounding property from a Duke who was more than willingly to sell the home to two naïve newlyweds. While Luka had heard of these tornadoes causing havoc in America’s heartland and the occasional “whirlwind” touching down in Europe, I had never in my life heard of these beautiful disasters, until that fateful night. The sky had suddenly cracked open like a broken egg and poured torrential amounts of rain upon us. From our third story view, we could see the black madness that was once the sky. The clouds above danced a devilishly jig in front of the sun, as thick, menacing black cumulonimbus clouds swirled around each other at high speeds, furthering the size of the already large thunderstorm that was developing offshore. The clouds reached up into the heavens, for what seemed to be miles, before they just

stopped, almost as if they hit a wall. The anvil top, as I have been told it is called, was massive. It crept along the sky in a fashion that reminded me of a shadowy hand reaching out to smother all who lay in its path. Luka, my partner in crime, sat patiently on the window’s ledge with a sketch pad in his lap and a charcoal stick whipping furiously across the blackened page. The weather outside seemed to have no effect on the man. He was quiet, calm, and patient as he sketched the unfolding terrors before us. Black smudges of charcoal streaked his forehead from where he brushed his hair from his eyes. “The gates of hell stand wide, do they not, Olyesa?” Luka muttered as yet another boom shook the rafters of the house, making the solidly built villa seem like a fragile house of cards. I shifted from my frozen position at the glass French doors and walked over to where my lover sat. The clouds seemed closer and much angrier on this side. “Why must you draw such horrid things, Luka?” He was fascinated with every dark, dreary, and despicable. This storm that was approaching blotted out all traces of life and made your soul feel alone, something that Luka deeply appreciated. He was an artist and felt that it was his duty to bring the truth to people across the world. The truth being poems of death and destruction, stories of human sacrifices and the wicked lies we humans weave, and pieces of art that depicted the horrid splendor of this world. Of everything in the world to disperse, the weather was his continuous inspiration for this misery and despair. “Sunshine is delicious,” Luka glanced up briefly to connect his icy blue eyes with my brown eyes, “rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such

thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. This, Olyesa,” he waved his charcoaled hand out at the sky, a twisted grin playing upon his lips, “is good weather.” I chuckled at the thought of us walking hand in hand along with lakeside. My parasol whipping wildly and my dress flapping uncontrollably as the winds drove hailstones the size of a pound coin at our bodies. What a wonderful way to spend the afternoon, out in a storm being pummeled by ice. How very romantic. Luka would have thought so. And then, as if he read my thoughts, “Why must we stay inside, Olyesa?” Luka pouted over the thought of being trapped inside whilst a severe thunderstorm was about to collide with land. “I don’t want to be inside any longer. I wish to feel the wind in my hair!” “You will feel a lot more than wind in your hair, my love.” I pointed out to the balcony where tiny pellets of ice had been collecting for the last several minutes. The rather harmless pellets had quickly transformed into apple sized balls of death. I pressed myself closer to the window, glancing back up at the sky. It was now a sickly shade of green that bled into the black. The clouds had shifted form. Giant bumps now protruded from the bottom, hanging low in the sky. Then, all of a sudden, there was nothing to be heard outside except for the sound of the hailstones pounding the roof. The eerie silence brought a shiver to my body and I wrapped my shawl tighter around my shoulders. “What in the world is going on out there?” I asked, more to myself than anything, but Luka put aside his sketch book and came to stand beside me. “It’s so beautiful,” he whispered. The bumps that had formed at the base of the clouds, which are referred to as Mammatus clouds (because a lonely scientist had nothing better to call them, in my own

opinion) had gone a step further. A large bump descended from the sky, continuously growing in size as it began to shift its form into a tell-tale funnel. We stood at the patio doors for what seemed to be hours, watching this hideous masterpiece take place. It was like a side-show freak. No matter how much it frightened or disgusted you, you couldn’t help but keep staring. I looked down at the lake. The water was spinning directly beneath the lowering funnel, but it only spiraled upward for a brief minute before simply settling back into the lake. There was a gut-wrenching roar. No. Not a roar. It was a horrid banshee scream! It was then that Luka grabbed my arm, directing my attention back to the forming monstrosity. Earth from beneath the funnel began to kick upwards as a rope like ending protruded from the base of the funnel. Debris began to fly all around us, pieces of what used to be trees. The windows began to scream as the howling winds pounded against the house, causing the whole structure to shiver and quake, as if it were ready to be ripped from the ground. The two spiraling masses met over land. Luka grabbed his sketch pad and charcoal piece and made a mad dash for the quivering French doors. “Was machst du?!” I screamed. My voice could hardly be heard over the banshee wail of the storm “I must capture this moment, Olyesa!” His eyes were wild and frantic. He looked psychotic. “Bist du verrückt?!” I raced over to him, grabbed his sketch pad and hit him upside his head. “Are you crazy?! We should seek shelter!”

“I must show the world, Lysa!” Luka screamed this down the halls as the banshee storm came ever closer to our abode. “The world needs to see this thing’s destructive power!” I turned around in the doorway that took us down into the wine cellar and smacked him straight across the cheek. “The world won’t see anything if you go running out into, you idiot!” A smack back into reality seemed to have been the cure for Luka shook himself from his trance. “I’m sorry, Olyesa. I don’t know what came over me.” “Right now, it doesn’t matter.” With his hand in mine, I pulled him behind me as I raced blindly down the cellar stairs. The scent of melting wax hit my nose before my eyes could adjust to the dim light that was creeping up the stairs. As we descended and came out into the catacombs, we were greeted by the servants. Some were curled into a fetal position in the corner; others were rocking back and forth on the ground crying and praying. “What is going on?” I demanded of one of the butlers. “Es ist Gott, Frau von Hessen.” As the butler bolted the door behind us, we could hear the banshee screaming overhead and the sounds of the house being ripped to shreds. Some of the banshee’s might crept down the stairs and pounded at the old door like the devil himself was paying a visit. The strong wind that made it through the cracks extinguished the flames of the candles and sent the women servants into a state of panic, but their screams were muffled by the powerful she-beast overhead. And as soon as she came, she left. In the blink of an eye the winds died down, the house stopped threatening to collapse, and all that was left behind were the cries of the women. Luka, the servants and I, waited in the cellar for another hour until we all

deemed it to be safe, and proceeded up the stairs to the ground level. We were all shocked and mortified by what we saw. The house, while it had been damaged in the banshee’s wake, was relatively intact. Mostly exterior damage was done. The roof had been partially peeled back like a tin can, all the windows shattered and some of the doors had been ripped off the hinges, but it was nothing compared to the property. Trees that had once stood majestically around the villa and surrounded the lake were gone. They had disappeared into the air. A giant scar of barren earth showed the banshee’s war path up the hill to our villa. It had hovered almost over our home and yet we were still there. Luka’s passion for destructive forces came to an end that day and we sold the property within a year. We moved back home to Germany, settled in Berlin where we raised our family and lived quite happily until the war. During then, the sirens that screamed warnings of air raids and the rumbling of tanks brought back memories of the banshee. While her screams are gone now, they are never to be forgotten and the rage she inflicted upon the earth will always be carried with me.

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"John Ruskin; a biography." Civilization defined and explained in plain English. Web. 13 Feb. 2010. . "NWS JetStream MAX - The Structure of the Ionosphere." National Weather Service Southern Region homepage. Web. 13 Feb. 2010. . "NWS Publications: Tornadoes." NOAA's National Weather Service. Web. 13 Feb. 2010. . "Tornadoes in the Netherlands." The Tornado Project Online! Web. 13 Feb. 2010. .