Posts Tagged ‘cloudbursts’
Isolated Downpours
We experienced wild weather yesterday evening, which is becoming more normal with each successive occurrence. Just as we were getting ready to head out to a local restaurant for dinner, the unexpected sound of thunder rumbled in the sky. A quick check of the radar revealed a small squall forming out of nothing.
We scrambled to get into the car before the fat, early drops became a soaking shower. As we drove toward Hayward, the wet road told a story of a significant downpour that must have just happened moments before. The combination of the whopping dose of precipitation and the large areas of wide open sky around the closest bursting cloud produced the widest bands of rainbow colors any of us had ever seen.
As entertaining as that was, we were soon presented with an even more dramatic mini-hurricane at the time we were paying our dinner bill. When we heard the boom of thunder, out came the weather radar screens on our phones. As Julian and I were debating whether the isolated red/orange/yellow blob would pass harmlessly around our location, I noticed it was starting to hail outside.
That was quickly augmented with gushing rainfall and high winds blowing the rain and hail sideways. Flash flooding swiftly resulted. We delayed our departure until the rain ended, but the intensity of the downpour was easily seen in the debris that had floated across the traffic lanes and the large puddles and runoff present wherever there was a low spot.
The sun was getting lower, but the surrounding areas of blue sky allowed enough light to illuminate another entertaining rainbow(s) that Julian caught while I drove.
I am no longer surprised by uncharacteristically heavy downpours because they are repeatedly happening often enough to have become “characteristic” these days.
Why, it’s as if, when it rains, it pours.
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Intermittent Soaking
Making plans to do anything outside in the kind of weather we have been experiencing of late is something of a crap shoot. At least we have the consolation of not yet dealing with the threats to life and property from tornadoes like folks to our south have been facing.
What we are getting is tantalizing sunshine that almost dries the grass enough to mow before the skies switch to gloomy clouds.
Just when you figure out those clouds on the horizon are sliding past to the south, another batch of heavy gray clouds show up from the north.
In the seconds after serving the horses their grain, the cloud drops its contents in a soaking downpour.
As soon as the ground is sufficiently saturated, the rain ends and sunshine returns to evaporate the water in steaming clouds off the asphalt driveway.
Rinse and repeat. Good luck finding grass dry enough to mow without difficulty.
If it is too wet to mow, I should go for a bike ride. I don’t like riding in the rain so I am really happy I didn’t get lured out by the temporary sunshine yesterday afternoon.
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Left Out
The day started mostly sunny but the forecast warned of a chance of rain in the afternoon. Sometime after Cyndie departed for a couple of days away with friends, I granted Asher a chance to walk through the woods wherever his nose led us, hoping to distract him from already missing her.
Before we set out, I opened a gate to allow the horses some time to graze grass. As far as we can tell, their bodies are adjusting to the gradual change in diet just fine.
While our neighbor to the south mowed grass along our property lines, Asher and I popped out of the woods and made our way between the horses in the field and the riding mower. It seemed like a perfect afternoon of spring sunshine.
The sky was partly cloudy, but it didn’t seem all that threatening. I hadn’t paid any attention to what the radar looked like. I’ve heard the phrase “popcorn showers” used for the dotted image of precipitation blobs that showed up when I finally checked.
Asher and I had made our way around our entire property and into the barn where I left him to kill time while I cleaned up manure and then prepared buckets of feed. I was planning to bring out the buckets as an enticement to get the horses to come in off the field. Before I made it out the door, they came racing in at top speed.
We couldn’t feel the wind at that point but the sound of the howling gusts that suddenly blew through the surrounding trees was downright spooky. Eerie enough to scare the horses back to the safety of the barn. I hung their buckets of feed as quickly as I could to get them focused on their evening meal while I scooted down to close the gate to the field.
I made it back just as rain started to fall. Then it started to pour out of the cloud with an ominous roar that rumbled the metal roof to maximum decibels. I looked out the half door at the horses and noticed why it was so loud on the roof. It looked to be equal parts rain and BB-sized hail.
Unfortunately, of the four spots the horses choose for feeding, Mia’s is outside the cover of the overhang. With enough warning, we can easily move her under but she was already out there when the deluge hit.
I could see the pellets of hail bouncing off of her. It didn’t seem to bother Mia a bit. Light turned around a couple of times to look out at the cloudburst but other than that, the dramatic precipitation didn’t disturb the horses from their feed.
The gusher ended as quickly as it arrived. Mia was wet but unfazed by it all.
Asher and I walked back up to the house under a fresh interval of sunshine and ate our respective dinners devoid of any further meteorologic theatrics.
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Popcorn Showers
Cyndie described her day at the ranch yesterday as a series of 5 or 10 minute downpours separated by periods of bright sunshine. The weather was notably unstable from dawn to dusk. I drove into an incredibly dramatic cloud formation on the way to work at dawn, stopping for gas just as the first cool gusts of the front swept in.
With the sun barely clearing the horizon behind me, the way it shone on the high roiling clouds was both eery and inspiring. A rainbow appeared straight ahead, looking more like a vertical stripe than a bow, and no, I didn’t get a picture of it. I was driving!
I checked the weather radar when I got to work and saw that there wasn’t much substance to the blob of precipitation. At the time, it looked like that would be it. Later in the day, when someone at work mentioned it was suddenly raining outside, I pulled up the radar image again. Our region was dotted with a countless number of popcorn showers. Evidence that supported the first-hand account I received from Cyndie when I got home.
During my return commute, I briefly considered the possibility of getting on the mower before dinner, to get ahead of the dramatic grass growth happening now. Two days after cutting it, the place begins to look like it has fallen to neglect. Luckily, my tired eyes pulled rank and kept me from doing anything productive. It saved me getting soaked by a surprisingly intense cloudburst about a half hour later.
Right on schedule, the clouds moved past and the bright sunshine returned. It made the roof shingles look like they were on fire. Smoky swirls of steam rolled down over the eave.
I can’t think of a better formula to make the grass grow even faster than it already was.
Maybe I should be looking into getting a bigger engine for our lawn tractor.
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Relative Something 