A Gully-Washer

Here in Riley County, you can always count on the unpredictable. According to the weather dude on TV, there was a slight chance of rain yesterday. In actuality, at about 12:30pm, the rains started coming down in bucket-loads. It kept raining, and over the next three hours, we received right around 4.75″ of rain. I heard someone call this rain a frog strangler.

That’s a lot of water in a short period of time. As the Sunday School song says, “the rains came down and the floods came up.” I thought there might be a need to start building an ark.

My wife shot this picture looking out our front door. The water is running over the driveway. If you look closely, you can see the vortex of the water also going down and into the 24″ tube that runs under the driveway.

In other parts of the county, Wildcat Creek was out of it’s bank. It was up to levels that I hadn’t seen since 1993.

On a positive note, we have had enough moisture this spring to keep the hills green.

Continuing to enjoy Riley County…

- Dan

Sometimes they come with monstrous thunderstorms. Sometimes they are gully-washers (or frog-stranglers) Sometimes they come with little thunder and lightening. Sometimes the rain comes down much slower and soaks in.

Last night was one of those slower, less-violent rains. The rain gauge at my house showed about 1″. Folks down in the southeast part of the state had the more severe weather.

All of the tell-tale signs of a spring rain were evident this morning…

• Normally dry creeks had water flowing.
• Buds from the trees were stuck to my pickup.
• The air had a fresh smell.
• Water was standing in ditches.
• The yard looked much greener this morning than it did yesterday.

But, the spring rain is only a warning of potential for dangerous weather, including large hail or even tornadoes.

I guess now would be a good time to purchase a weather radio!

- Dan