OK, so we had an extreme drought this summer, but that's enough rainfall for now, thanks, you can turn it off now.It's been raining heavily for the last 24-hours with little indication it's going to stop anytime soon. The windward side of the Big Island has been under a flash flood warning all day and we were allowed to leave work early due to concerns about highways being flooded. There's only one way in and out of Puna, the district I live in, and the highway is prone to flooding, so I definitely didn't overlook the opportunity!
Some areas have had rainfall rates up to 2-inches per hour, many locations have received over a foot of rain in the last 24-hours and since the ground is already saturated due to recent rains, flooding is a very real concern. Since my electronic rain gauge no longer works (it stopped working when it was underwater during the floods earlier this year and then received a few more volts than it was designed for) I don't know how much rain has fallen at home but would guess 10-15 inches since yesterday evening. The good news is my house hasn't been struck by lightning, which makes a change! The other good news? The noise of the rain drowns out the sound of the coqui frogs who love this moisture...
The Mauna Kea access road is closed due to snow. There was about a foot of snow a fair distance below the summit earlier today but no one knows how much has fallen at the summit because no one can get up there, the road is impassable. The observatories are on their own tonight - and perhaps tomorrow as well.
Most of the thunderstorms stopped at around midday today although the rain didn't. Now, as I write this, there's thunder and lightning again - and it's getting close and a little too frequent for my liking. Time to shutdown for the night I think. The local AM radio station has just gone off air - once again.
3 comments:
These pictures remind me of when I was on St. Thomas, one of the US Virgin Islands, during the strike of hurricane Marilyn. It looked exactly like this prior to the violent day of the actual storm. However, I hope your weather, although seemingly very wet, will not be stormy.;))
I love the sound of the rain on the roof. When I was a kid, we lived in an old farmhouse with a metal roof... the sound of the rain on it was delicious... and though I often dealt with bouts of insomnia as a child, nothing could lull me to sleep faster than the sound of rain hitting the tin overhead. I miss that so.
Protege - you really have lived in quite a few places, haven't you?
Diane - the sound of rain on the roof is great, but when it sounds like a herd of buffalo stampeding upstairs and even top volume on the sound system can't compete, I suspect even you will have trouble being lulled to sleep!
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