It was to be our last day in Florida. But Ms Florida felt we needed one more unique experience. It started raining around 9 yesterday morning. The light rainfall turned into heavy rain by noon. By 2 p.m. there was lightning and some periods of wind. The tornado warning, then tornado watch was issued around 4. We pulled in the slides and readied to evacuate to the bathrooms if needed. We watched the television and internet intently as the radar displayed the na
rrow but long line of orange to red weather cells flowing directly over us. I have seen it rain heavily in eastern Washington cloud bursts and tropical storms in Thailand and China but these storms often lasted a few minutes, much less than an hour. It rained as hard as I have ever seen it and it rained, I would guess, heavily 80% of the time for 10 hours. It reminded Barb and me of the typhoon experience in Manila. We never left the rig but we wanted to. The rain pounding our roof was so loud that we couldn’t hear the TV. Lightning flashes were frequent and close. I checked the door step regularly to see if water in our site was rising. Streams of water were flowing by but it never reached more than a couple of inches deep. 
Thankfully, the lightning and intense rain stopped at 10 p.m. It dripped through the night but we slept well. We woke at 6 AM to prepare to leave, if possible. The TV announced that schools and some roads were closed and that some areas had received 17 inches of rain. An area 70 miles away had not received any rain. Our parking pad is surrounded by water but the road is clear. The temp is 70 and it is foggy. Across the way, a boat had been blown ashore. We boarded the Jeep to investigate the conditions. We drove out of the park and experienced water 2 feet deep across the road. It had been deeper and one car sat abandoned in a ditch fil
led with water. We drove a bit father and found a restaurant. We ate and talked to the locals. They all shook their head at the unusual weather. Storms like this do come in occasionally but not in January through April. The rainfall amounts broke records but the intensity was not wide spread. The heaviest rainfall was at our location. On the way back to the campsite we talked to some state troopers. Their advice, “hunker down”.
We are not leaving today. Intense thunderstorms are coming from the west and we would rather not drive into that. It will not be as bad today but there will be some rain, some lightening, and gusts of wind. The RV is dry, warm, but getting smaller by the hour. We will be safe and hunker down one more day.
rrow but long line of orange to red weather cells flowing directly over us. I have seen it rain heavily in eastern Washington cloud bursts and tropical storms in Thailand and China but these storms often lasted a few minutes, much less than an hour. It rained as hard as I have ever seen it and it rained, I would guess, heavily 80% of the time for 10 hours. It reminded Barb and me of the typhoon experience in Manila. We never left the rig but we wanted to. The rain pounding our roof was so loud that we couldn’t hear the TV. Lightning flashes were frequent and close. I checked the door step regularly to see if water in our site was rising. Streams of water were flowing by but it never reached more than a couple of inches deep. 
Thankfully, the lightning and intense rain stopped at 10 p.m. It dripped through the night but we slept well. We woke at 6 AM to prepare to leave, if possible. The TV announced that schools and some roads were closed and that some areas had received 17 inches of rain. An area 70 miles away had not received any rain. Our parking pad is surrounded by water but the road is clear. The temp is 70 and it is foggy. Across the way, a boat had been blown ashore. We boarded the Jeep to investigate the conditions. We drove out of the park and experienced water 2 feet deep across the road. It had been deeper and one car sat abandoned in a ditch fil
led with water. We drove a bit father and found a restaurant. We ate and talked to the locals. They all shook their head at the unusual weather. Storms like this do come in occasionally but not in January through April. The rainfall amounts broke records but the intensity was not wide spread. The heaviest rainfall was at our location. On the way back to the campsite we talked to some state troopers. Their advice, “hunker down”.We are not leaving today. Intense thunderstorms are coming from the west and we would rather not drive into that. It will not be as bad today but there will be some rain, some lightening, and gusts of wind. The RV is dry, warm, but getting smaller by the hour. We will be safe and hunker down one more day.
1 comment:
whoa! Glad you guys are safe!
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