Very Heavy Rain and Thunder and Lightning...

...and as if that was not enough you can add flooding and hail to it now. Those have been the local conditions in Central and Western XXXXX County and I live pretty much in the middle of the county. I was driving back to my office from XXXXXXX, XX when I decided to turn off of the highway because of the weather. Soon after, I decided it would be best to call it quites for the day and just head home because it was coming down so hard as to male driving very unsafe. Even with the wipers on full blast it was hard to see because of the rain. Then the thunder and lightning started and soon the rain was falling even harder. I pulled over in the parking lot of a drug store and waited it out and waited and waited. I sat there for over one hour and it did not abate. Then I figured, oh well, I'll head home but the road was flooded where an underpass went under rail tracks and I had to go another way. The street I drove down looked like a river, no exaggeration. The traffic on that other way was at a dead standstill. I tried another route and got through. Curbside on my block had a stream about 4 feet wide running down the block, the intersection at the corner was totally flooded. Just before I parked my car, the really hard stuff started to fall - hail stones. At first they were about the size of peas then within a couple of minutes they were the size of large marbles, like large cherries. I ran from the car into the house and got soaked in the course of about 15 seconds. I was greeted at the side door by the dog, they were pretty skittish, I guess the weather had gotten our doorbell to keep going off and that with the thunder, hail banging on the house and the heavy rain probably had them just about bonkers. I took the bell down and pulled out the batteries. Then I calmed the dogs and gave them a snack. Pepe, our male Chihuahua, would not take one and I had to calm him for over 10 minutes before he ate one. He must have been really bothered by all the din.

That kept up about 15-20 minutes after I got into the house. Then, almost as suddenly as it started I stopped hearing the hail ricocheting off of our windows. The dogs are calm now. I checked www.localweather.com and saw that 2-3 inches of rain had fallen in the hour before 4:46. My guess would be more than 2 1/2 inches all told around where I live after measuring the depth of water in 2 large basins in my yard. One had 2 1/2" the other had 2 3/4 inches. Luckily for us, no flooding that I have seen though I am sure some neighbors are not that lucky. I do not care where you live in the USA, 2-3 inches of rain in an hour is an overabundance of the wet stuff for sure.

That is it for now. I am going to see if the dogs will go out now that it has slowed down.

All the best,
Glenn B