Were you caught off-guard by Sunday's storms?

* Two hot & humid days: Full Forecast | NatCast *

Following Andrew's post taking an up-close look at Sunday's violent thunderstorms, there was a lot of chatter yesterday about the amount of warning people had. The storms surely came and went quickly (I was blogging and tweeting, and it was tough to keep up), but then again, the National Weather Service issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch at 1:50 p.m. -- more than 70 minutes before the storms reached the area. Warnings were issued a good 20 minutes before the first drop of rain in most spots.

But for those outside and/or away from television or digital communication devices, the combination of the storm's swift arrival, power and fury was undoubtedly surprising, if not startling.

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Irrespective of "if" you were caught off-guard, there's also the question, should you have been caught off guard? Many readers offered their opinion yesterday...

Here are some highlights:

@SierraSun: Sorry, there is no way anyone should have been caught by surprise by this storm. Weather forecasters were saying for several days prior that the cold front coming in could bring severe weather and that it could be bad because of the extreme heat. By morning on Sunday, they said it would hit between 2pm and 3pm. They were absolutely on target with this one and what it shows is that people are clueless and need to start paying closer attention during periods of extreme weather. If you need help, there are multiple ways to get text messages sent to your phones for weather reports and emergency warnings.

@FIREDRAGON47: These storms moved very fast. And most people are not weather junkies like the crowd on this blog. Folks probably listened to a weather forecast Sunday morning for "storms likely this afternoon & this evening". They thought that they'd be able to see it coming, get out of the pool, pack up the picnic & get home with time to spare.

@tcfenstermaker: No offense weather geeks, but not being one myself, I wouldn't have paid much attention to a "severe thunderstorm warning" since they are a near daily occurrence in the summer.

@MKadyman: If you are hiking on Sugarloaf Mountain I can understand why you wouldn't see a severe thunderstorm approaching. But anywhere else? Why would it be a surprise? Maybe I am weird because I look at the sky every so often. I am guessing that there must be people who cannot recognize a huge black cloud mass building up in the northwest sky. That means thunderstorm folks.

So what do you think? Are excuses for being caught off-guard for Sunday's storm legit? How do you stay ahead of the weather when you're out and about, if at all?