May 27, 2007 - Rain?

I thought I knew rain.

I survived the many winter floods of California, and summer visits to the Pacific Northwest, so I thought I knew rain.

I outlasted a week of afternoon drenches one summer in Denver, so I thought I knew downpours.

HAH!

Yesterday we had a DOWNPOUR! For an hour, we couldn´t even see the mountains through the rain - these are mountains that you can walk to in less than 15 minutes! The house across the street had a foot of extra ¨haze¨ above the roof where the rain was bouncing - ¨double rain¨ if you will. The streets were rivers. The place we were eating lunch flooded. We couldn´t hear anything over the rain on the roof - we shouted to order our lunch; they turned off the radio; every once in a while, we imagined we heard the waiter singing. It was better than in the shower! NO ONE could HEAR YOU!

Then! the thunder and lightning came! Most strikes were 5 seconds (between lightning and thunder), but several times I only got to ONE second. That is darned close... =:-)

An hour after the rain stopped, the rivers were once again streets with little puddles, the sun came out, and people creeped out of their houses and went about their business. Our host tells us that in October, this sort of rain is common - but it lasts 6 hours instead of one (!!!)

We found out later that downhill of the soccer field, the lightning had struck - phones were out for a while at least.

Today - sunny and warm, no rain so far (but I´ve got my umbrella)...