What makes you sing?

What do you do when you are feeling great, when you are excited? You keep silent? You start singing or dancing? You scream? Feel free to describe your actions in the comments below when you are feeling total bliss.

Me, well, I sing.

Some people get all excited for the holidays, for Santa Claus who might be passing by your house. Me, not so much.

What makes me sing, is a storm. Yes. A storm.

I do not watch TV nor do I read the news, but generally, important news always finds its way towards me, one way or the other. When it comes to weather forecasts, I have a dozen or so apps that keep me posted about weather conditions. But still, I hadn’t seen this one coming.

Ciarán. What’s in a name. Giving a storm a name used to be a sign that it’s going to be a big one, but nowadays that is not always a guarantee.

After I received a text message saying that a cyclone is on its way (some even call it a bomb cyclone), I started to google. I came across this youtube channel (Noodweer.be) -I have been following them through other channels for a couple of years now- where they give an extensive weather forecast, storm forecast in this case. For about 20 minutes Nicolas shows and explains the forecasts maps by the different weather models. The American, the European, the German…

They all say the pretty much the same thing; there is a huge one coming our way.

I start planning. Where shall I go? I have a couple of storm locations in my head, but is it safe enough? How do I get there? When do I go? A zillion questions go through my head. I read and reread the forecasts. I check the maps. I check my files.

I am excited. I am ecstatic. A storm! And I sing!

But then, according to the various forecasts, the storm is too big, even for me, at least there were I want to go, Brittany or the Cotentin. Winds up to 190km/h on the Capes, waves up to 8 or even 12 meter. Trees that still have their leaves so are more likely to fall. Storm surge that might flood towns and villages. I do not want to be killed. I do not want to lose my car. I get worried texts from family “You’re nog going, are you?”, with me one can never be sure.

So I decide to wait. Prepare my suitcase, fill up my car, gather my rain clothes and camera gear, and read the news, twitter, weather channels, check availabilities in hotels. As soon as I can, I will be off, after Ciarán, there is yet another storm expected on Saturday.

And I sing.