And the rain came down...

Last evening, my daughter, Leighlyn, read on Weatherbug that Wichita County had a 100% chance of rain. It just didn't mention anything about the rain falling for 100% of the night. LOL! With it, came much lightning and thunder. At one point, 50 mph winds were forecast. I don't know if they were that high or not. At least at our house, we never noticed anything like that. The roof on the golf course building east of town lost it's ridge cap. It is now lying in the ditch. I am sure that as the day progrsses, much more damage will be discovered.

Our herd was frightened by the storm. The little ones seemed to take it fairly well, but you also have to realize that they were curled around my neck so they should have felt pretty secure. But, even the bigger ones snuggled up to us in bed as well as they could. I awakened sometime in the night to hear one of them literally crying in my ear. She was even shaking! Our queen-sized bed was FULL last night!!!

Yeppers, we noticed rain and small hail sometime around 9:00. Fortunately, the hail did not seem to last long at that time. It may have hailed later but if it did, I didn't notice it. Earlier in the evening, baseball-sized hail bombarded southern counties such as Stevens County. People in Wichita County remember what that did to us last June--ruined roofs, many totalled vehicles, broken windows, destroyed crops and gardens, broken trees...

I have not heard how much rain we received here yet, (I still haven't gotten around to replacing our rainguage that was destroyed by a hailstone earlier), but I can tell you that it was a hefty amount! Here in our house, we discovered that we now have roof damage. Winds helped to drive the water through roofs. Thank goodness for the invention of buckets! LOL!!! I seriously doubt that we are the only ones who will be doing major roof repair very soon! Water is everywhere!!! The gutters runneth over and I have to dump outdoor flower pots or else they'll be a-drownin'. Stan told me that water is flowing in creeks south of town and in Kearney County that he has never seen before. A Seaboard Truck accident also happened south of Leoti. The truck flipped over on it's side causing the driver to sustain shoulder injuries.

When we got up this morning, we discovered beautiful blue skies. But as of now, 8:40a.m., clouds have moved in and winds are again beginning to blow. I'd say that if we get another significant amount of rain today, there will be a good chance of some minor flooding in our area.

For the past couple of weeks, area farmers were discovering major dry spots in their fields. After last night, I doubt if that will be a problem for awhile. I just hope and pray that this moisture and hail did no major damage. Folks, it is so wonderful that our drought has broken!!! I, for one, will not be complaining of too much rain for a long time to come!!! We went without it for far too long...

VLE-B