E.E. Cummings once described spring as a time "when the world is puddle-wonderful," but of course he was completely wrong: Spring is a time of high-freaking terror in the world, because that's when the tornadoes are out and about, as they were in Salado, Texas this week:

Reporting from the damaged central Texas city of Salado, [AccuWeather National Reporter Bill] Wadell experienced the severe storm system's wrath firsthand. The impacts of dangerous lightning, extreme wind and monstrous hailstones left 23 people hurt in the area, while many homes were damaged by a nearby tornado. Ruth Parker is one of those homeowners who has been left to pick up the pieces.

"It was just a loud hum that was constant," she told Wadell. "We were on the front porch and there was softball-sized hail and it was crazy. I was getting the storm closet ready."Her husband, Brian, said they experienced the twister in a way they never could have imagined. It was his first tornado encounter, he said, and shocked the couple when they realized how close it was."I look up and I'm like ‘holy moly, there it is right there,' sure enough," he told Wadell. "It was close. We could see the whole funnel. It moved super close… that was close enough."

This twister was no joke:

The hail, meanwhile, was, well, kind of mind-blowing:

Give me summer, winter, fall—anything but this madness!

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