Behind the Photo: “Gateway of the Gods”

New England weather is notoriously weird. Just this past week it was cold enough to require the furnace one morning, and then the air conditioning a day later with nothing to ever indicate it had been that rainy and raw. I’ve watched my neighbourhood flood and then experience a drought less than a month later:

In 2011 we were rocked by a tornado outbreak and, with the fifteenth anniversary approaching, I would like to share the story behind one of my favourite photographs that was taken that day. I had been out all morning in Leominster running errands as I had to drop off a bass guitar at the shop for routine adjustments and needed to get parts to repair my grandmother’s riding lawnmower at Sears (which really makes me feel like an old codger reading this back). After arriving at The Mall at Whitney Field, the Emergency Broadcast System went off on the radio to indicate a tornado watch had been issued for the remainder of the day. It was still sunny and oppressively hot after I got out of the mall. Large cumulonimbus clouds were beginning to form on the horizon as I headed home.

Twenty minutes later, it was a much different story. The sky had grown especially dark and I quickly ran around my yard looking for my outdoor cat (who was terrified of thunderstorms) before heading inside. He must have known something was brewing as he came running over to me after just one call instead of the usual four or five. The maple and oak leaves began rolling and the first tornado warning was issued. I caught a glimpse of the supercell as it approached my house, ran for my camera, and snapped this beauty before the second alarm was raised:

(Opens in a new window)

It felt like being in the presence of old Norse gods at the beginning of Ragnarok with thunder shaking the house and rattling the new replacement windows so hard that I thought they would crack. The hale began to fall seconds after I photographed the scene and took shelter in the living room with the local weather keeping everyone updated on the emergency. While no major tornados formed where I live, Springfield was hammered by an EF3 that tracked from Hamden through a decent slice of southern Worcester County.

Four people were killed in that disaster with hundreds left homeless in the aftermath, and it would be in poor taste not to mention the tragedies of that day.

Since then, we have had tornado outbreaks on a near routine basis. My house was hit directly by an EF0 or EF1 in August of 2021 on the south side of a hurricane as it churned over northern New England. Last summer a fairly strong tornado ripped through Berlin and the damage is still visible when driving towards the centre of town. I dread to think of what this summer will bring as the climate continues to change and weather patterns become more and more unpredictable compared to just ten years ago.

The beauty and cruelty of nature come alive in this image as it appears so peaceful, even heavenly, compared to what followed mere seconds after it was shot. It is a very cautionary reminder that we belong to the earth and are not the complete masters of our world. To think otherwise would be completely fantastical.