September 20, 2004

Downpour

Saturday the weather prediction was a 50 percent liklihood of rain showers.

Instead, we had horrendous downpours interspersed with thunder and lightning. It rained hard most of the day, which is very unusual -- generally an all-day rain is mostly a light rain with an occasional hard rain. But, of course, it's hurricane season.

Often we get a rain and windstorm as a spinoff from southern hurricanes, but rarely do they do much damage. It's a way of clearing out the dead wood-- some tree branches fall, an ocasional power line goes down and some houses are without electricity for a while.

Actually, other than the hard rains, that's about all we had here. I never have lost power in my present location, though others in this city do now and then. Losing power seems to be more common in the countryside. A friend who lives in the outskirts of town lost power for a while.

I remember summers I used to spend at a lake in rural Maine, where frequently there would be a late summer thunder storm and we would lose power for an hour or so. Often I was preparing dinner at the time, so I was glad we had a gas range. I liked watching those storms-- you could see them coming down the lake, the dark clouds and the roiled water, making their way toward us. There was time to run inside, or to snatch the washing off the line before the rain began pelting down.


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