Springtime in Missouri

As much as I love spring, I could do without the severe weather that has been passing through these last few weeks. Over 100 tornadoes touched down in a 24 hour time span last month, some too close for comfort for me. I am terrified of tornadoes, so why I live in tornado alley, I have no idea. Because that's where my family lives, I suppose.
I know there must be a scientific explanation (I should ask my soon to be science teacher husband), but I would like to know why most severe thunderstorms roll through here in the middle of the night. I can deal with the thunder and lightning. It's no big deal, but when it gets into hail and tornado warnings, I freak. I cannot sleep at all if there is even the tiniest bit of "cloud rotation" as the weatherman says. I'd also like to know when they changed the tornado warning system. I know when I was younger, a tornado watch meant conditions were favorable for a tornado to drop and a warning meant one was on the ground, take cover. Well, now a warning doesn't mean one is on the ground, but it could happen at any time. Granted, that's enough to send me scurrying to the basement, but do they have to keep changing this stuff? Also, if it's daylight, I feel like I have a chance to see something coming. In the darkness, I can't see enough to give me a sense of comfort, and I sit staring out the window, hoping a flash of lightning won't show a big funnel cloud heading my direction. Seriously, I have a phobia of these things. At least with a hurricane you have warning, but tornadoes just drop out of the sky, rip lives to shreds and disappear. Ah, the things I ponder as I sit here listening to the thunder roll across the sky and strain to hear if the hail has hit yet.
Just another springtime in Missouri. It's moments like these I sit here wishing I were sitting on the sands of the beaches of Pensacola, wiling away the afternoon with a glass of tea, a smutty novel and an ocean breeze. Someday...