altivo

My desk shift started at 5:30 pm yesterday. Thanks to our wide angle view to the north (the entire north wall of the library is glass, and the desk faces it) we could see the very black clouds passing over Southern Wisconsin. I started watching the weather radar on the web at 6:00. Soon every county in the southern tier of Wisconsin had flash flood warnings. The storms extended all the way back through Iowa, angling down to the southwest, and were moving due east. No way they'd miss us. I timed the loop and predicted that we'd get hit right at closing time.

It happened. Ten minutes before closing, the deluge began. Since the internet stations had automatically shut down five minutes earlier, the library was empty. We started locking up, knowing that no one would arrive during the cloudburst.

Waited a while hoping it would let up so we could get out to our cars without being drenched but finally gave up and ran for it. Drove home in near blinding rain. Once I got off the state highway and onto the back roads, I noticed a new phenomenon....

Frogs. Or maybe toads. In that rain, with only headlights, I'm not sure I could tell the difference, but I kept seeing them hopping awkwardly across the road in front of me. Now I do brake for animals, but conditions were extremely slick and I didn't want to slide off the road. I slowed down and tried to dodge them, but it was a miracle if none were squished. I've never seen anything like it before. It was on Standish Road, a two or three mile stretch of north-south pavement lined with small farms of the 10-20 acre size.

The rain continued all night, pretty much. Didn't stop until just a few minutes ago, at dawn. Now the radar is clear. But the forecast is for more rain this afternoon, and "heavy" rain tonight, tomorrow, and tomorrow night. I begin to think I need the house of Baba-Yaga, you know, the one that had bird legs and could just get up and walk around looking for higher ground. The rain gauge in the dog yard shows about 1.5 inches since yesterday. If they got the same amount at the airport in Rockford, then that brings them within about 0.6 inches of the all time record for a single month. I think it's a sure thing to be broken now.

Gary did come back from Chicago in the evening, because he didn't want to miss his T'ai Chi class. He fed the animals and shut the barns, and made supper. But when I got home at 8:25 the house was deserted except for dogs and cats. Table set for two, food in the oven keeping warm, and his car was gone. He left a note. "Decided to head for Chicago ahead of the storm and try to miss the worst of it. Dinner's in the oven, I'll call when I get there."

So I had supper alone, with thunder and rain crashing over the house in the dark, and worried about my mate driving through blinding rain on the interstate. He did call about 9:30, thank goodness. Two nights alone in the thunderstorms. I used to like that, now I don't. Guess I'm getting old...