Monday, April 18, 2011

Washout

Saturday brought 3 inches of rain, including nearly half an inch in 10 minutes, according to Roundtop's weather station.  The rain was the heaviest and for the longest amount of time that I think I've ever seen.  It was a downpour, the kind that usually ends after a few minutes.  Except that this one didn't end for hours.  The rain came with thunder and a tornado warning, but the tornado stayed away from my cabin.  The rain soon turned into flooding, and two days later, water is still flowing off the mountain and pooling in meadows and anything that might be a low spot, even if it didn't look like a low spot until Saturday.
Now I am left with a severely washed out road, and it's this kind of day that makes me glad of four-wheel drive.  Roundtop will fix the road soon enough, I expect, though soon may not be until Thursday or so, which is the the next day that doesn't have more rain in the forecast.
Other than that, the bloodroot has boomed, and the first of the spring beauties are also out.  I'll have some flower photos tomorrow!

2 comments:

Cathy said...

Yikes! I do believe you lost a good part of driveway. It rain heavy here. sometimes it was so heavy it look like snow was mixing in. However it was over 40 degrees. Glad to see that tornado stay away.

Carolyn H said...

Cathy: the washout and small stream flooding was worse here than for Hurricane Agnes, which brought us 18 inches of rain in 3 days. But this brougth anywhere from 4-6 inches in about 8 hours. I know of several people who were trapped and ended up staying overnight with strangers because roads in both directions were blocked.