Wild weather welcomes us to Wisconsin
After getting our rig back from repairs, we spent a couple of nights voyaging through Illinois before settling across the border in Wisconsin. That night, this beautiful sunset greeted us.
Our site backed up to a large pasture, and we felt the country vibes of America's Dairyland. We had a lot to look forward to in our 41st state RVed, but this first stop was mainly for regrouping, since we had lots to still clean and put away after the repairs. We stayed at the KOA in Milton, southeast of Madison and not too far from the Illinois border. We were happy to have full hookups and amenities, but our few days there would find us mostly inside the rig, looking out at the pasture.
We mean that in a "no adventures planned" way, but also in a slightly different way. See that sunset? It was the only one we got in Wisconsin for the entire next week. The Milton KOA was a fairly typical KOA Holiday. It wasn't going to snag a place in our RV travel history books, but nature had other plans. Now, we will forever remember that campground, our site, and the pasture.
A few thunderstorms were in the forecast during our stay, but nothing out of the ordinary. After all, we had just bounced through the entire Midwest during a very active tornado season. We did what we always do, keeping an eye on the forecast and using our weather apps to watch the radar.
We did something else too, which made us realize that we had formed a habit without realizing it. We took note of the shelters as soon as we arrived. Typically, after we settle into a campground, we go "exploring," aka taking a walk around the grounds to get our bearings. We find the locations of all the amenities, laundry, bathrooms, etc., and we get a feel for the vibe of the place. It also helps us get some exercise after sitting in the truck all day. During our Harvest Hosts challenge, we had to be aware of the weather at all times, but after successfully avoiding tornados for a few weeks, we had a little scare that made us realize we had gotten complacent. We didn't want to ever do that again. Even in our Airbnb, the night we arrived we were placed in a 2% tornado risk area. In case you don't know how these percentages work, it's not 2% of a risk in general, but actually a 2% risk within 25 miles of a point in that area. So the risk is always higher than it seems once you calculate it against the demarcated region. Anyway, we asked our host where we should go in case of extreme weather, and he told us where to find access to a crawl space under the house.
We had close to two weeks in that house before getting our RV back, and once we did, we became hyperaware of our surroundings once more. I suppose we didn't want the sticks and bricks life to make us complacent again. The forecast was only saying severe thunderstorms at worst, which isn't a forecast we typically worry about, except during tornado season, severe thunderstorms can take a turn. We watch a lot of storm chasers.
The morning after our arrival to the KOA, the air was thick with humidity. I tried taking my usual morning walk but ended up feeling sick. I get barometric pressure headaches really easily, and as you've probably noticed, my body doesn't handle humidity well. The sky over the pasture was looking eerie, an indication that the forecast would likely be right on point, and we would be getting storms soon.
Once back inside, I tried to rest my head and get some work done, but that afternoon when the storms hit, my tension only increased as I took to monitoring the weather in our apps and out our windows. The downpours were extremely heavy, and they always sound extra loud on our aluminum roof. We were getting minor flash flooding in and around our campsite. The thunder clapped loud enough to scare Tanner, who is losing his hearing and doesn't always hear thunder anymore. The wind picked up just enough to rock our rig when a big gust blew in.
All signs were pointing to a bad thunderstorm. The only new weather warnings were of river floods across town and the radar was showing bands of heavy precipitation but nothing too alarming. As afternoon wore into evening, we had very little reprieve. Our neighbors two sites down pulled in and decided to wait for the rain to let up before unhitching and heading inside. They were waiting a while and finally had a short window of opportunity. Unfortunately, it didn't last long, and the rain came back before they finished setting up. Seeing people arrive in weather like this always gives us a sense of relief that they are off the road and somewhere safe, even if they did get a little wet in the process. We've driven in torrential downpours and wind before, and it's really stressful and can be dangerous.
The routine became one of total split focus: Do work for about 5 minutes, all the while looking out the windows. Pause to check the weather warnings, forecast, and radar. Rinse and repeat. I was in one of my 5-minute work stints when the sirens went off.
It was the strangest thing. We weren't expecting them because we we hadn't even been under a tornado watch all day. We had never been in a tornado warning. Yet, we went on total autopilot. I muttered a few expletives, grabbed a button down to mask the fact that I was braless, and went to grab Lily's backpack. Anthony was across the trailer, already springing into action. We had made note of the shelters when we explored the day before, but neither of us had discussed them. I said to Anthony, "What do you think, downstairs in the clubhouse or the bathhouse?" The clubhouse had a whole downstairs area that, while not underground, was lower ground than anywhere else on the property. However, the bathhouse was closer. "I was thinking clubhouse," Anthony answered. We would need to drive over there, but thankfully the flooding was only an inch or so. We harnessed Lily and got her in her backpack, leashed Tanner, and we were out the door.
The sirens were deafening. We've been in other towns where the volume is kept so low that people aren't even supposed to hear them from inside. What kind of a strategy is that?! We got no alerts on our phones, despite having several apps that are supposed to issue them. When we checked the weather, only weather.com was listing the tornado warning. Accuweather hadn't even caught up yet. These sirens were our main indicator. We're not sure how they're set up in this area, but they sounded like they were rotating, getting a little softer for a few seconds and then gradually louder until their peak volume.
We had absolutely no panic. Just stress and a little frustration that we can have all these meteorological advances, and yet, we were still not expecting the warning. I turned on my camera as we packed the pets into the truck. Nothing was imminent. In fact, the skies looked better now than they had when I was out taking my walk! I knew I wanted to capture this moment and it seemed safe to do so.
I put the reel on Instagram, and at the time of writing this post, it's gotten 160,000 views. Nothing like finding a whole community of people who love weather drama! I'm sure many of them like to watch storm chasers, too.
The unedited version was a little funnier. In the reel, you can hear Anthony tell Tanner to pick up the pace, and then I say "He's fine, he's fine." For Instagram, I had edited out the part where Tanner took a very long pee. Poor thing hadn't been out in hours because the storms were so bad, so he knew this was his opportunity to go!
Tanner's bathroom break gave us some time to look around and see what our neighbors were doing. Two of them were walking around, looking at the pasture. A few of them, especially tent campers, were securing their belongings. Some were ignoring the warning, including our neighbors who evidently didn't want to go out in the rain again. We saw a couple of vehicles heading toward the exit, which was also the direction of the clubhouse.
We got to the clubhouse parking lot and figured out our next move. Whatever was happening, it wasn't happening quickly, nor was it near us. The warning had triggered for three counties, ours included, but most of the systems were saying it was in two counties, and it varied which two. This was probably why half our weather apps didn't list our warning.
After a couple minutes, I asked Anthony if he wanted to go into the office and make sure it was okay to bring our pets downstairs. The office was located at the front of the clubhouse and was still open. A minute later, he came back out and said, "They told me that everyone's down there and the pets are welcome." Everyone? Hmm? They must mean everyone who took the warning seriously, which didn't seem like a very large number.
We grabbed Tanner's collapsible water bowl that we always keep in the truck, and I grabbed the two blankets that are always in the truck - Tanner's travel blanket and my camping blanket. They're not the plushest, but in a pinch if we needed extra coverage, they'd at least keep debris from making direct contact with us. And if debris ended up not being an issue, we'd have some coziness. We debated grabbing our bike helmets from the back of the truck. Tornado Alley dwellers know. But we didn't want to take the time to get them out, and all our instincts were telling us that we were not in any real danger.
You may be wondering about our go-bags. We always have Tanner and Lily's in the truck, but we didn't take them in. The tornado warning was looking to expire quickly, so we expected to not be taking shelter for long. We keep our go-bags in the RV and they were also packed, but I hadn't even gotten mine out from under the bed. Once more, we felt like we'd rather get to shelter quickly and not worry about gathering up our things. Had we needed to go further away or if the situation seemed more dire, we would have grabbed them. This was probably the one little thing we could have done better. Those bags could have been right by the door. We just never needed them in a thunderstorm before.
As we took the bowl and blankets out of the truck, a small Class C pulled in, and the husband went to check in at the office. We wondered if their stop was planned or if they took refuge for an overnight because of the storms. We never had a chance to ask them, but they parked in our campground row and only stayed one night. Everyone's responses were a great "what would you do?" experiment. What would we have done if we were on the road and heard the sirens? Hopefully, we wouldn't have been on the road, but if we were, we would have definitely gotten off and found a safe place, whether that's a campground or some other shelter.
We entered the clubhouse, followed by a family that had just parked next to our truck. The dad was holding his daughter's hand. She was about 5 years old and was sobbing, while her dad tried to console her. My heart ached. I can't imagine how scary this situation must be for a child. I wanted to go over and tell her that nothing bad was going to happen and that we were all safe. They ended up going into the laundry room downstairs, while we made our way into the rec room.
We shared the space with less than 10 people and a few dogs who were very happy that we brought a water bowl. We all told our stories of our experiences with tornado warnings. One of the couples has a seasonal campsite at the KOA and they said this was their third warning in two weeks! The fact that they took shelter in the clubhouse every time made us feel really good about our choice.
Before we knew it, the warning expired and everyone immediately jumped up to leave. We weren't so fast. We have heard too many stories about warnings expiring and then something happening. We wanted to take our time and continue to scout our surroundings. We were the last ones to leave the building and checked the sky in all directions. It didn't look any more or less alarming than when we arrived to the clubhouse.
Then we went back inside the trailer and continued with the usual: 5 minutes of work alternating with monitoring the apps, plus constant checking out the windows. My barometric pressure headache was now paired with an adrenaline headache, but there was no rest in the foreseeable future. More storms were rolling in that night, and the next day, severe thunderstorms that were predicted to be even worse than this one. We braced ourselves for more sirens, and this had us on edge for the entire next day.
Just like the day before, I woke up and took my walk. My head was doing a bit better, but we were seeing some extremely low barometric pressure readings that were lasting for days. Barometric pressure is depicted in millibars (mbars) in the metric system, inches of mercury (Hg) in the US, but my main weather app uses mbars. 1013mbar is considered normal. Our readings for the day were in the low 1000s, dropping below 1000 at night. I took it easy on my walk, but this was when I got to assess the damage from the storm before. Some ruts from flooding and a lot of branches. The KOA workers were busy fixing everything. They had trailers full of dirt to fill the ruts, and the trailers that didn't have dirt had branches that were being cleared from the roads.
The storms weren't coming in until late afternoon, so we had some time to get work done and then do a quick errands run. Then we settled in for night 2 of craziness. This storm was more stressful than the previous evening by far. Part of it was because we were now paranoid that the sirens would go off again. After doing some research into the tornado warning, I learned that there was a storm cell northeast of us in Fort Atkinson that had radar indicated rotation. That storm was moving northeast, meaning away from us, but our county still got warned. Fort Atkinson was located in Jefferson County and we were in Rock County.
We had a lot of thoughts about this. First, we're always cool with being safe instead of sorry, and we'd rather have our first warning be harmless and short-lived like this one was. On the other hand, could this be the reason why so many of our neighbs didn't budge when the sirens went off? If they are local, maybe they think the warnings are too conservative. The way we see it, you only need to be wrong once. We have always had strict plans in place, ever since our first tornado watch back in May of 2022. If there is a watch, we make sure we have a plan of action, and we review it. If a warning is issued, we implement the plan. These are non-negotiables.
Because of this, plus the fact that this next storm was looking like a big one, we were ready to spring into action. This time, I got my go-bag out from under the bed. Then, I went right back to my routine, shades up to monitor outside our windows, and constant checking of the forecast and radars. Anthony had to jump on a work call, which meant I was left to keep watch. I did not like what I was seeing. The sun was setting, and across the pasture was one of the most ominous looking shelf clouds I have ever seen.
Once darkness set in, I would no longer be able to see the contour of this storm system, and I'd be relying on all my apps. All I could do was brace for impact.
Soon, the skies opened, and down came the heaviest rains we had ever experienced in our rig, and that's saying something! Buckets upon buckets dumped on our roof and the lightning was flashing every few seconds. The wind picked up, and half the time I couldn't even tell what noise was wind and what was rain. It was all a constant wall of sound.
This hyperlapse gives an idea of just how much lightning there was. The camera only captured about half of the flashes and this was all in the span of about 5 minutes.
I thought that if the Rock County weather service issued a tornado warning last night that there was no way we weren't getting at least a watch now, and this stressed me out. I was ready to jump at a moment's notice, and part of me wondered if we should even trust the forecast or if we should go to a shelter if and when we had a clearing in the rain. But no clearing came and we stayed put until the radar showed that the worst was over. The storm lasted about 3 hours, and then intermittent storms rolled in and out over the course of the night. To our surprise, no tornado watch or warning. By morning, we were totally worn down, but it was a travel day. We were headed to a Boondockers Welcome an hour west of Milwaukee - in Jefferson county, no less!
Thankfully, the weather cleared for our travel day, and we had beautiful sunny, blue skies. So you can imagine our confusion when this happened in the middle of our packing up:
Anthony and I looked at each other with furrowed eyebrows and then guessed that it must be a test siren. Sure enough, the Rock county website mentioned test sirens on the first Wednesday of each month around noon. It was 12:05PM on Wednesday, June 5. Would be nice for the KOA to alert campers of this little tidbit of information, especially considering a guy at the end of our row was on his roof at the time and could have fallen off, given how much he startled at the sound. Also, we're not sure if Rock County got the memo during the three tornado warnings of the past two weeks, but THE SIRENS WORK JUST FINE! Does the county not know that other places do much more subtle test sirens? Wakita, OK has chimes instead!
Nothing like yet another adrenaline rush to start our travel day. Tanner was less than thrilled.
We hoped that when we headed to the Boondockers Welcome that we were putting the stress behind us. Jefferson County had remained under river flood watch since the Monday night storm, but it didn't impact our travels. We set up camp on peaceful farmland near a shed on our host's property. We'd be staying for two nights, and the forecast wasn't predicting any severe weather.
Night 1:
Night 2 was looking clear, and we hoped to see our first sunset since June 2, but the clouds had other plans. We got shrouded in the evening, and even had a smaller thunderstorm that night. We chose this night to watch a YouTube video explaining how to detect tornadoes on different radars. We wanted to wait until the weather wasn't wreaking havoc in real life. So when the unpredicted thunderstorm came in while we were watching the video...let's just say it added some flair.
Looking back at the week, the worst part wasn't even the tornado warning or the deafening downpours and thunder. It was the feeling of constantly being on edge, like we needed to be hypervigilant at all times and couldn't relax any of the evenings. We felt tense, we didn't sleep well, and my headaches were nonstop. We really needed to turn our visit to Wisconsin around, because this was not how we wanted our summer to start.
Somehow, we lucked out with another clear travel day, but clear skies do not mean we are good for takeoff. We woke up to wind gusts up to 45mph, and our little parking spot happened to be in a wind tunnel. We estimated the gusts to be between 50 and 60mph there. We had driven in high winds before and sometimes we made it out fine. Other times, we did not. We were also aware that we were not in the calmest state of mind after our wild introduction to Wisconsin. We were faced with a decision: Hit the road in the high winds, or stay put until we were sure we were safe?
