UPDATE 6 AM, 8/19: Periods of rain today and Monday; cooler high temperatures this week may push 2012 summer out of 10 hottest list
UPDATE 6 AM, 8/19: Some heavy rain showers have developed this Sunday morning in the Roanoke and New River valleys and nearby areas as a wave of low pressure along the front has swept thick moisture atop a somewhat cooler air mass sliding in from the north and northeast. Additional showers are possible through the day across Southwest and Southside Virginia as the wave moves by. High temperatures will be considerably lower in areas that get significant rain. END UPDATE
There will undoubtedly be plenty of folks who remember 2012 as one of the hottest summers because of that torrid June 28-July 9 stretch, when Roanoke topped 100 four times and every day but two among those 12 90-plus days also topped 95. But the climate records for this summer, based on averages over three months, are not going to corroborate those memories. The list of the 10 hottest summers based on average temperatures for Roanoke is topped by the last two summers and 2007, impressive and indeed anomalous that 3 of the hottest summers should occur within the most recent 5-year span. Beyond that are a scattering of years from 1934 to 1987, with three years in the 1950s on the list. (NOTE: 1930 does not appear at all because of some missing dates. Considering it had 21 100-plus days, by far the most, it would most likely be somewhere near the top if records were complete). If summer 2012 ended Saturday, its 76.7 average would put it in a 4-way tie for 5th on the list. But if the National Weather Service projected temperatures for the next week are accurate (they won’t be exactly, of course, but could be close), the summer average will fall off to 76.2 and drop out of the top 10, needing a steep last-week rebound to regain a top 10 spot. 2012 will likely finish among the top fifth of summers for average warmth, but it will not be a record breaker, because of cool to normal temperatures the first 3 weeks of June and again in much of August. Heat in 2012 has been a sprint; it was a marathon in the past 2 summers.
In a few months, news that a recently passed cold front is developing a wave of low pressure (Sunday evening projected weather map linked) that will throw moisture back over will be greeted with intense interest from snow lovers . In August, it’s kind of blah. It may provide some showers to folks needing rain, especially Sunday night and early Monday, but it appears the heaviest rain will generally stay south and east of Southwest Virginia. The extra humidity and clouds are going to stymie what could have been a couple of really good nights of radiational cooling, too — instead of widespread 50s and maybe a few 40s, lows will hang pretty close to normal, upper 50s to mid 60s, for Sunday and Monday mornings. But highs, which sunshine boosted to near normal levels today in the upper 70s to mid 80s across the region, may drop back a few or even several degrees in the 70s (some upper 60s possible on Monday if it gets really socked in by rain and clouds ). The temperature regime this week will remain pretty stable, with upper 50s/low 60s common for lows and upper 70s/low 80s common for highs through most of the week, maybe a few degrees cooler Tuesday or Wednesday morning if a reinforcing shot of Canadian air can find a calm, clear night.
A long way out, we may need to keep an eye on the tropical disturbance in the eastern Atlantic or possibly the one just now coming off Africa, as forecast models are rather consistent in bringing a tropical cyclone into the western Atlantic near Aug. 30. It’s much too early to nail down specifics on path or strength this far out, but it tis the season for this sort of thing, and the pattern may become favorable during that window.
August 18, 2012 - 7:54 PM
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I just looked through the previous 12 Septembers for rainfall amounts at Roanoke. They are all over the place. There was the wettest month since I moved here, 9-2004, when RRA got 11.72 inches but I got 17 in my back yard. (When any system “invades” the Roanoke valley from the south, I nearly always get quite a bit more than RRA. Kevin has explained that it is upsloping effect) Also wet: last year’s 7.39, the vast majority early in the month, 2010′s 6.92, with nearly all of that during the last 5 days of Tepsember, and 5.88 inches in 9-2000. Also a 4.32 in 2003. But 6 times RRA got less than 3.5 inches. 2.12 in 2001, and 5 straight years starting in 2005, with the two driest being a wretched 0.23 in 2005 and only 1.11 in 2007, which happened while an El Nino was going on. (Exception that “proves” the rule …. most times when there is an El Nino, ROA gets at least a bit wetter than normal, and sometimes ridiculously so).
I sure do hope that the faucet gets turned back on. If we get another dry September, my lawn will be toast. And even more Octobers have been dry here than Septembers. Something like 4 of them had less than an inch, and one or two were less than a TENTH of an inch.
For once I am hoping that a model is correct. Kevin posted a comment late in the previous thread to a 12ZGFS run that shows a hurricane hitting Wilmington, NC on August 31st, the Friday at the start of Labor Day weekend. It would be a terrible thing for residents and especially businesses all along that section of the East Coast, but I would love it if it would move inland just a bit more than what is shown and DOUSE my neighborhood. It happened exactly that time of year in at least 1999 and 2004, and could happen again.
Kevin and others (Glen? Joe? Zach? wd? anyone?), I vaguely remember watching the Weather Channel back about 2003, and one of their weather guys stated that three times in something like the previous 5 years Wilmington, NC had gotten a direct hit from a hurricane. Anyone know if that is true? I don’t know if they have gotten a direct hit since then. So if both of those statements are true, …… they could be overdue. Which means zero, I realize.
Fall months in general are all over the place. Several of our wettest and driest months on record are in the fall.
I’m going to root for the hurricane staying out to sea, if there is a hurricane. Don’t want Virginia to go through another power outage crisis after the derecho (easterly winds, like we often get in this region with landfalling tropical systems, actually do more damage than westerly winds of the same strength, because trees are naturally braced for more common westerly winds). I think a far better way to alleviate the dryness would be to just have El Nino start kicking in pretty good and bringing a series of southern stream disturbances.
Doug: Fran 1996, Bonnie 1998 and Floyd 1999 fit the bill. Maybe Kyle 2002, too, though I think it had weakened by that point
Here is a little tool you can play with to look up tropical system tracks, even right smack through SW Virginia.
http://www.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/#
Wonder if Joe is out there and would fill us in on Dallas area downpours. Flash flood warning for Dallas-Fort Worth now.
Yes, joe, “Enter and sign in, please,” as the host used to say on What’s My Line. I hope that flash flooding is not affecting you and your loved ones adversely. At least this August is quite a bit wetter for you than August 2011!
Thanks, KM!! The COLC now has another bookmark. I looked up Roanoke and saw one hurricane track that made absolutely no sense to me. Came into the Roanoke area FROM THE WEST!!!! I figured that it was a mistake, but when I clicked on that line, I got a shock. Camille, August 1969!!! I think it caused more deaths in Virginia from a hurricane than any other. Something like over 200 (?) people killed by incredibly destructive flash flooding in Nelson County (which is SW of Charlottesville in case some of you might not be familiar with it). High elevations of the Blue Ridge just to the west of that county, with STEEP slopes down to the Rockfish River.
Already down to 61 this evening up here on the ridge.
Camille killed 113 Nelson County residents, according to an “EncyclopediaVirginia” website. Worst rains happened overnight. 8-19-69. Omigosh, that’s tomorrow (Aug. 19th, that is)!! I bet local television stations have stories about it.
There was a lot of coverage of it 3 years ago on the 40th anniversary. Rainfall of 27 inches was measured and believed possibly up to 36 inches in just a few hours in Nelson County. Camille’s old center began drawing energy off the Atlantic and actually regained tropical characteristics as it moved offshore.
WOW!!! 27 inches of rain fell on Nelson County!!! In (an almost certainly) very short time. No wonder there was almost unimaginable flash flooding!
Lots of people in Greene remember back then. Motherinlaw was a kid back then and remembers terrible flooding in Greene, but she said with the way that Nelson was so mountainous the folks there had little chance to escape. Its kind of funny, Nelson is kind of out of place here in central Virginia. Its geography looks like it belongs more in the NRV or Mountain Empire. The worst flood that I have been involved in was 2002 in Pembroke the year before I moved up here in Greene. It had rained 6 inches up on Butt mountain and Mountain Lake that night and the next morning we awoke to a roar and route 460 down through town looked as if it was just another branch of the New river. The waters quickly subsided and by evening it was nothing but a major mess to clean up! I guess that was sort of like Nelson on a very small scale. Kevin, were you in Roanoke at that time and do you remember that Pembroke flood?
Doug,
confirm what Kevin has in #5 above.
The Euro has been showing something going on in the Atlantic starting after the 28th of August. Camille, I remember her well. I was just a young lad in the Valley at the time she hit. What a scary storm that was. I have friends in the ILM area that are saying the same that they are overdue for one. I’ll look into it Sunday for everyone. Quags
Jared: Been in Roanoke since 1999. I do remember the event you’re talking about. It was before Weather Journal started in any form (first online version started very late in 2002 — almost no one was reading back then).
Speaking of hurricane retrospectives — here is the Miami Herald looking back at Hurricane Andrew 20 years ago.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/18/2958131/the-fury-of-andrew.html
I actually went and helped out some in the Camille aftermath..
delivering food..
My grandparents lived in Roseland in Nelson County at the time
as did my aunt and uncle in Lovingston.
I saw things there that were unimagineable..insofar
as the devastation boulders that rolled off the mountains..
houses ripped off foundations.
There were people that stopped because they couldnt drive along route 29
..stopped and got outside. It was raining so hard they had to cup their hands around their mouthes and bend over as they feared drowning in rain.
I was lucky not to have lost any relatives.
I remember to this day being in Salem the day before Camille..
I and my mom noting to each other how odd the sky looked..little did we know what was aout to happen.
It was a jarring and unbelievable experience.
Kevin…
Thanks for the consideration…
Very busy airplane night…
Lots of lightning west of us before it hit..
many flight diversions (slow mover and unfavorable winds)
between 1 and 2 inches in most of the area..
the best part was leaving work and it was around 69 degrees..
I cant remember when in the spring it was that cool.
Tomorrow..a note on how fast things can turn here,,,!
Thanks Joe.
Just made short update to blog to account for morning downpours occurring in Roanoke and New River valleys.
Times, they are a-changin with the summer weather pattern.
0.32″ here. First in over a week or so.
Drove thru that area on the way to the hunt camp. Entire valleys where the Tye river ran thru where flat, pristene and green the day before. If nobody has ever seen a valley a 1/4 mile wide, washed completely clean of trees, grass, buildings, then the tellin of it won’t sink in. Absolutely nothing but rocks and sand and gravel left. Never before and I hope, never again.
Well that was surprising, waking up to heavy rain this morning.
Just under 3/4″ right now, but I’m sure it will hit that soon as this band makes its way through FC.
Everyone enjoy the rain today. Glad to see the NWS finally came on board this morning by nowcasting the all day rain for Sunday that has looked likely since Friday morning. Glad to see we can also put to bed the talk of “what a hot summer”. Aside from a few days in late June and early July, this summer has been anything but hot, at least in the NRV where the temp never topped 95. This has been one of the most pleasant summers I can recall, low temps never warmer than about 67 degreees, and afternoon highs in the low – mid 80′s most every day, with enough rain to keep things green and keep us out of drought.
Woke to the sound of rain during the night and didn’t know what the sound was. Then it sunk in – ahh, rain and I went back to sleep. So far this morning we have had “0.42″ inches but it is coming down again – straight down. What a wonderful sound. I can’t remember when the last time was that we heard a nice steady rain. We all are enjoying it up here on the ridge this morning.
Woke up to rain this morning boy is this a wonderful sound and sight. I remember reading about the flood in Nelson County was about 15 years old then lots of damage. There was a flood in Roanoke in the early 70s but nothing like the flood of 85. Both floods were the result of tropical systems I believe with the one in 85 being the most damaging. Remember driving down I581/220 south with water running on the road like a river . In the end there was 9 feet of water in my office which destroyed everything
Woke up to 0.30 in the gauge……….more just now starting. I’ll have about 1/2″ when we get done this morning.
On Camille, 1969….I had to be in Crozet, VA in the early 80′s when I met a guy at a sawmill that had lost 32 relatives in the ’69 flood. Another guy I talked to was on a rescue squad out of Staunton, working in Crozet during and after that flood. He spoke of retrieving bodies 30′ up in trees after the water receeded.
Kevin do you think it will rain on Monday as well? We need the rain so badly. Working in the yard yesterday the ground is very dry. We were putting up chicken wire up to keep the deer out of the rhododendrons and the ground was hard as a brick. Still had fun though since there was lots of weeds to haul off which means I got to use the tractor. Hauled off about eight buckets of the stuff
And guess who is getting a real rain? ME! And it even looks very promising for more later today, too. Big blob in the favored locations of Washington, Smyth, Grayson, and now entering Wythe Counties loaded with yellows and a few pale oranges looks to be holding together and is headed straight for the Montgomery County and Roanoke valley.
Just got done watching Jay Webb this morning tell his viewers that year to date rainfall was down 5-6 inches below normal in the “area.” Not sure what “area” he is referring to as, Blacksburg is only 1.14″ below normal and Roanoke is only 3.51″ below normal year to date. Could we use a little more rain, maybe, but enough already with talk of how dry it is, as the facts simply do not bear that out.
Mike: Maybe Jay was talking about Doug’s yard.
Lynchburg is down 5.78 inches from normal and Danville a whopping 9.19 below normal. That’s the part of the TV area that has had the most dryness.
Meanwhile, Bluefield, W.Va., is up 5.23 from normal.
Those 3 and Roanoke and Blacksburg are considered the major reporting stations in NWS-Blacksburg’s forecast area.
Nice,steady rain here in Woodlawn this morning,about .3 inches already with more on the way. 61 degrees too. Had to push the chihuahuas out the door this morning…they hate rain!!
Randy: Scattered showers on Monday. Probably not the coverage of today. Temperatures should be nice.
Doug to one of your earlier posts my yard is toast as well full of the dreaded wire grass which I believe is a result of the drought . The pond is also down about three feet. Some mornings the fish are looking up at the sky as if looking for clouds and rain. Even the frogs say its dry
I saw a toad in our driveway again when I took Blondie-Boy out just before midnight. This time it WAS an omen … a great one. I don’t believe it … at 8:30 I had exactly one inch in my rain gauge, and the dry slot to our SW seems to have filled in nicely with rain. Am I about to get 1.5 inches?!?!? September 2nd seems to have arrived two weeks early (Sept. 2nd was the date last year when I started getting doused). Already the back yard looks a tiny bit better.
Be grateful that you cannot hear the following: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the rain ….”
This is the first day in which I have received more than an inch of rain since at least early June. YIPPEE!!
I think the perception of this summer is always going to be hotter than the average temperature would show because so many people didn’t have air-conditioning during many of those hottest days in early July.
Unless he covered it during his first weathercast during the WDBJ7 hourlong newscast, Jay Webb did not talk about the anniversary of Camille in Nelson County today. He did speak a little bit about Hurricane Irene’s effects on eastern Virginia in late August 2011.
Just over an inch of rain here in South Roanoke. What a wonderful sound. Hello everybody!
Thanks Kevin since I work outside for a living rain can directly affect if we work or not. If we get a lot of rain the ground will be to soft to work on . The rain seems to be coming in waves and it gets really dark then lightens up again . Will go out shortly and check rain gauge
Blacksburg’s average temperature is 70.9 degrees for summer through Aug. 18. That has already dropped it outside the top 10 since 1952 with little chance to recover the ranking after this week, as 10th is 71.2. Will likely be a summer averaging somewhere around the bottom of the top third.
Randy Oakey, comparing the floods of 1985 and Camille in 1969 in Nelson County, the 1985 flood probably covered a wider area, caused more property damage, and affected more people because it happened in the most populated area of SW Virginia. But Camille killed 113 people and from what I have heard and what few photographs I have seen, it was much more devastating for the area affected. But I will defer to wd and others who were living in SW Virginia then.
In the article on the “encyclopediavirginia” website I looked at last night, they issued the following sentence: “So much rain fell in such a short time in Nelson County that, according to the National Weather Service at the time, it was ‘the probable maximum rainfall which meteorologists compute to be theoretically possible.’”
Welcome back, Steve Murray!! Great to hear from you again.
The thing about the Camille flood was that it didn’t just turn creeks into rivers, it turned very small ditches and almost imperceptible drainage basins into rivers. Entire mountainslides broke loose and turned into mud.
Kevin – thanks for the info on rain totals in LYB, DAN, and BLF. Incredidble differences across our area. Also, good point on the perception of how hot it was due to the lack of AC in early July. Great point, and goes to show that perception alot of times is NOT reality.
Doug I was referring to the flood in the early 70s comparing it to the flood of 85 Sorry if I wasn’t clear. The destruction of Camille in Nelson County was terrible as well as the loss of life was horrible . The flood of 85 was devastating for my family so on a selfish note I suppose it sticks out in my mind more since I was older and it affected me on a personal level.
Man this slow easy rain is great. No severe warnings. No heavy rain warnings. No special weather statements.
Then Kevin ruins it by mentioning snow on Twitter (humor). Thanks a lot Kevin.
Y’all have a great day!
And giving credit where credit is due — you were right about the timing of the rain today, Mike.
My snow tweet Mark refers to was in reply to Jay Webb’s tweet about getting lots of “you suck” emails regarding the unexpected early timing of the rain today. I was asking him to consider how many more he would get if snow had showed up 6-12 hours early.
Of course, among the majority of Weather Journal commenters, a snow that shows up early would not be nearly as stressful as one that doesn’t show up at all.
Hey, guys and gals, thanks to all of you for providing your anecdotes and eyewitness accounts of the Camille in Nelson County disaster. Valley in which the trees and buildings were swept away!! Corpses 30 feet up in trees! Amazing. I sure do hope one of the tv stations or networks or even The Weather Channel show some photographs or video of the aftermath.
About the folks without power after the June 29th derecho: I talked with literally dozens of people, including a few postal co-workers, who were without electricity for up to 8 days in truly brutal heat by SW Virginia standards. I learned about what to do if it ever affects me in the future. Two of the best ideas I heard were to (A) call friends, neighbors, even archenemies (that was a joke) who have power to see if they are willing and capable of storing my frozen food, and (B) having a big cookout to eat up all the food that would otherwise go bad. And (C) immediately call a local motel to try to get a room if there is even a remote possibility that power will be out for days.
Meanwhile it is raining hard again here!!! LOVE IT!!! And I don’t even have to deliver mail in it. TY, WG!!!
Already an inch here in Bonsack…looks like we will be mowing early this week!!
Looks like we have a back edge of this rain shield that will clear the Roanoke and New River valleys by noon. Scattered showers after that, and temperatures bounce back into the 70s.
10:15 I am up to 1 and 1/4 inches.
You didn’t mention buying a generator, back wiring your panel box, having an adequate supply of gas/fuel on hand. The above will probably not equal out to more than a weeks stay in a motel, loss of food in fridges and freezers, and bandages to put on knots and bruises inflicted when the heat gets to you and your other.
Speaking of Camille, you can still see the physical scars left from that storm. Driving North on 29 from Lynchburg to Charlottesville, you’ll come upon the small town of Lovingston. You can see where bare rock is exposed on several of the mountainsides and the sides are extremely steep. From what I have been told the tops of those mountains were much more “round” prior to the storm and looked like most of the other small mountains in this area. The earth was simply washed away leaving the sharp rock cliffs.
Total rain so far up here on the ridge – “1.08″ inches. Yippee! Now the wind seems to be picking up and coming out of the southeast.
Doug – in reply to your comment #49, here are 2 youtube videos from one of the local news stations about Camille and Nelson County. The first is just an overview of the storm and the 2nd is probably more what you want to see about what happened and what it looked like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vuc6ip-uVns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq0xMgajl6k
Just eyeballing my rain gauge out the window, looks like I have about 1.4 inch of rain a couple miles south of Roanoke.
Speaking of great floods in Virginia, the 1995 Greene/Madison County flood was an incredible event. It rivaled Camille without the same loss of life. Gauges recorded 23.5 inches of rain in a 5 1/2 hour period from 9:30 to 3pm that June day. Some estimate that up to 30 inches fell in the hollows of Madison County. I was driving from Roanoke to my home on the Greene/ Madison line by Jared’s golf course that morning. As I passed through Elkton on Rt 33 at about 9am, I noticed a massive waterfall on the western side of Lewis Mountain. There aren’t waterfalls on the that side of the mountain. When I crested Swift Run Gap on Rt 33, the rain started and intensified as I descended into Stanardsville. I turned onto Rt 230 to head to the last three miles to my home. A police 4×4 was in front of me. When we got a dip in the road at Brill’s Shop (The Golf Course Road), a swift flowing stream which didn’t exist at all in normal times, was threatening to cut off that area. So he crossed and I foolishly followed in my Isuzu Trooper. We both barely made it through. I certainly felt the tug of the rushing current. We were the last people to make it in that day. Once home a few minutes later. I began monitoring my rain gauge. My wife had already dumped five inches out of it earlier that morning from the previous storm in the early morning of the 27th. I emptied it several more times in the next few hours. All told, we received 17.5 inches of rain in the five and a half hours from 9:30 to 3pm. About three miles northwest of us in Fletcher -base of Lewis Mountain (locals call the area Middle River), they received 23.5+ inches. We lived within ten feet of the top of a hill in our small housing development and had to evacuate our house and take shelter with our next-door neighbor simply because the run-off from their lot was rushing around our house. Parts of some of the local mountains liquified just like in Camille creating devastating and deadly mud flows. Many people lost homes, but most scrambled away. My son’s kindergarten teacher fled her Middle River home and escaped up the mountain. All of Rt 230′s bridges over the small rivers in the area were severed. The community of Hood was particularly isolated. All of this rain and damage was caused by a tiny thunderstorm that simply did not move at all. 8 miles away in Ruckersville, my nephew was mowing his grass on that sunny, humid day. After the storm abated around 3pm, we went out to the golf course to survey the damage. We found a tractor trailer wrapped around a tree trunk about 30 feet up beside the Middle River. One of the golf course’s farm neighbors rescued a cow stuck 30 feet up in a tree. A massive propane tank washed up on the 13th green. I found over 1000 golf balls washed from their hiding places. We watched a Coast Guard helicopter use the fairgrounds below our house as a staging area for searches and rescues. That storm was horrific. Thank God the bulk of it hit during daylight hours.
http://firsthandweather.com/blog/all-posts/firsthand-weathers-20122013-preliminary-winter-forecast#more-13094
Here is another winter forecast done by Joe Bastardis son Garrett. It is very similar to accuweathers, maybe there is something to this. I am sure the great Joe Bastardizes helped his son just a little on this! Anyhow any comments are welcome.
Yes, I have heard many stories of that flood, it created the pond on hole 12. Also heard about the gas tank on the green. It must be something about the area? Who knows, but the 9 years I have been up here its been moderate drought, seems hard to get rain at times, but we got some good rain today! Where do you reside now Nick?
Newt, I remember the Greene/Madison flood of ’95 very well as I lived on South River at the time. When the waters receded we had trout and crawdads in our yard. Thankfully our home was slightly elevated as the floodwater completely surrounded us.
It was a scary event. I was 17 at the time and home with my mom and our only plan was to either climb up on the roof, or try to tie the johnboat up to a tree and hold on.
Thanks Newt. An amasing piece of our weather history.
Did we achieve a record min/max today, only got to 69 in Blacksburg?
Neither Roanoke’s 72 nor Blacksburg’s 69 were record low maximums for Aug. 19. The records of 68 for Roanoke and 61 for Blacksburg were set in 1957.
@Nate: I suspect you are Nancy and Larry’s son. If I’m correct, I knew them and you well when you were in school. I taught third/fourth grade in Greene and my wife taught with Nancy at the primary school. Your house was so very close to South River. I remember standing up at a supervisors’ meeting when the board was considering moving the county fair from the school complex to the corn field next to the golf course. I told them that the area was completely flat for a reason…it was in a flood plain. They assured me that the area was in a 500 year flood plain and not to worry…A couple of years later, the flood apocalypse struck, destroying the fairgrounds. Your house on South River was in the same boat, so to speak. Flat land near a stream near a small river. Why was that land level? I’ve been suspicious of level land and mountains ever since.
@Jared: We moved to Roanoke after the Hurricane Fran disaster in 1996. Two years in a row of weather disasters sealed it for us. We used to live in the first house you come to through the woods just past the first fairway’s creek (Not Mr. Dean’s hubcap farm:) I would go out, with Dale’s blessing at 6am in the summers and play/walk 18 holes by 8:45. Those were amazing times and Greene Hills was a fantastic place to raise two children. Roanoke was where I grew up and where my parents lived. Greene is my adopted home.
All this discussion on historic floods reminded me of a section in my Exploring the Appalachian Trail book on a hike in the Shenandoah, a section from South River Falls to Bearfence Mt. which offers a view of Jones Mt. whose topography was ‘altered in 1996 by a thousand year storm and flood.’ But as I googled, I think this was the June 1995 storm. It goes on to say that “the entire course of the Staunton River was moved half mile north, leaving a gully in place of a scenic trout stream…” and that Graves Mills community was destroyed.
Emptied out 1″ from the rain gauge early today from the morning soaker we had.
Newt, this really is a small world! I actually live down route 810 about 5 miles but am becoming more acquainted with the area around the golf course. I guess you heard the course was totally demolished by a tornado in 2004! We are doing pretty well now and these recent rains have helped our aerification along very well. Im Dale’s assistant so I hope to take over when he retires, but you never really know about politics at a golf course (have my degree from VT). I spent the first 25 years of my life in and near Giles county, so the folks up here have to deal with my appalachia dialect LOL. Nice to know a few people on here know where I am living and understand our weather up here in Greene! Yes, it is rather humid and nasty in the summer up here, but the winter of 09-10 was a nice surprise for this mountain boy! It was the snowiest winter on record for these parts, currently they are forecasting a similar winter to that one. Hope it materializes!
Nick, forgot to ask if you did any trout fishing on South River, not as good as Giles or Craig county but it will have to suffice. Gotta kick when my wife said South river, it was actually smaller then the creeks back home and when I think river I think if the New since I grew up along its banks! Not really a whole lot of water supply up this way except for ground water! Shenandoah river across the mountain us the biggest I can think if and its probably only half the size if the New.
“Paramedics took my shirt off, and the only thing they found was that my heart rate went up. I just got hit by lightning and my building’s on fire – whose heartbeat wouldn’t be up?”
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/08/18/4190589/some-forth-worth-streets-flooded.html
Yikes, Joe. Weather quote of the year. I may re-link that story in comments when I post a new blog entry here very shortly.