Whomped Hard Right In The Gully

You forget what real smash-mouth rain looks like after a spring, summer and fall full of heat and drought and dry.

This morning we had our memories jogged: It looks like angry gray on darker greenish-gray with a visibility of about 20 feet and sheets of water dumping down, alternated with horizontal rain and down-drafts so powerful they throttle 100-year-old pecan trees like rag dolls and make the ground shake. Or was it Zeus flinging sparking lightning bolts down, once every three seconds, literally, during one stretch of time that seemed to last 20 minutes? Big, gut-wrenching booms close enough you could smell the sulfur in the air.

This started in earnest around 8:15 a.m. By 11, we had been blessed with at least 5.5 inches of rain, although I must say God has a scary way of blessing you sometimes. I say at least 5.5 inches because that’s all the rain gauge holds, and it was overflowing. My guess is that by the time it all stops, we will probably have received 7 inches, in perhaps four hours’ time. Not unprecedented hereabouts, but for sure at the upper end of a good gully whomper and more rain in one episode then we had all last summer.

Hope springs eternal and this spring will be no exception.