Storms

Unfortunately, there is a low pressure system sitting right on top of New England causing storms to pop up and in some cases cause sever issues. I am a weather fan, and really wish I had my own weather station here. That will come in time I hope.

On Monday evening, I decided to hit the package store before a thunderstorm I was watching on NWS radar came in off Vineyard Sound, so I headed off to Mashpee. Once at Andy's Market, I got out of the car and observed a nasty, dark cloud heading pretty much right in the direction of the store. I went in, picked out Mrs. G's wine and while looking over the beer selection I could hear thunder. Then I could hear heavy rain on the roof. Rats. I checked out at the register and headed for the car. I had my 12 pack of Harpoon by the handle in my right hand and the bag of wine and other goodies in my left. Just as I approached the car, a blinding flash of lightning lit up everything (it was still daylight at this point) and was instantly followed by one of the loudest thunderclaps I have ever heard. This strike scared me, I am not ashamed to say. There was no break, not even a split second between the lightning and the thunder. I drove home in extremely heavy rain until about the Barnstable Fairgrounds where it cleared off.

As I was typing up the last post (Sunday/Monday) around midnight Tuesday, I was watching NWS radar again and saw a small thunderstorm develop over Nantucket and/or Vineyard Sound pretty much right over the shoreline. I watched it start to go severe and knew it would probably get interesting. The cell blew up and covered almost the entire upper Cape and did, in fact, go severe. By 12:20 am the swale near our rock wall was flooded nearly to capacity, and there was an extended period of hail slightly larger than pea-size. This is such a rare event on the Cape, and may well be the first time I have seen it at Frost Bottom since 1979. There was an incredible amount of rain coming from this storm. Our walkway adjacent to the wall was completely flooded almost to the top of the only step in the walk way. I walked around in the basement fearing the worst. What I found was unexpected. The places I expected leaks to occur didn't leak. There was a couple minor leaks elsewhere , one of which could probably be avoided by taking down the canopy over the deck. A river of water came off the roof of the canopy and poured pretty much up against the foundation.

I shut down the computer and unplugged a few choice appliances as the lightning was quite vivid and close. Power did flicker a couple times, but so far no complete loss. I changed into jeans thinking I would be setting up the Shop Vac for basement flooding, but luckily by 1250 the rain had let up a little bit and the water level in the swale and the walkway was dropping fairly quickly. I understand that other areas get weather like this all the time, but we don't here. When we do get it, we get it good (or bad, depending on your point of view). I cannot believe the volume of water that came out of this storm. It appears we my get more overnight, and I certainly hope to be able to sleep through them.

Hail on top of the canopy. A rare event on the Cape.

What I learned from this little storm:

- We may need to create a dry river bed from our swale out to the road. This should eliminate any concern over basement flooding, at least on the west side of the house. I was truly shocked at the depth of the water along the rock wall. Sadly, I could not photograph this.

- Generator, generator, generator! Especially if we're going to have a large freezer full of food this fall.

- We could very easily be in trouble if there is an extended period of rain such as would come from a hurricane or tropical storm without the dry river bed.

Now, at 2:45 am, I think it's time for bed.


**** Updated @ 8:08 am **** This storm produced 6+ inches of rain according to radar estimates. I can believe it and think it was definitely on the plus side of 6 inches. Most of that fell with in half an hour or 45 minutes.