It's a Gollywasher! Or, Whitecaps on Joe's Run

The forecast said rain all day--thunderstorms and high winds. Then tornado advisories were issued.

Tornadoes? We don't get tornadoes, or at least they are very rare in this state because our mountains tend to interfere with their high-powered twisting. Occasionally one will touch down briefly, but alerts? That's not part of our emergency preparedness in the Mountain State.

As far as I know, there were no tornadoes in our vicinity. But rain--oh my yes. When we reached Joe's Run this evening, this is what greeted us:


Not over the road--yet. But all the creeks were out of their banks, running through fields and yards with the abandon of a child at play. Even the watershed lake was full to overflowing, and Mill Creek (the big creek Joe's Run empties into) was out in the meadows along Rte 33. In Ripley the storm sewers were spouting like fountains because they could not handle the run-off.

We drove through many shallow runoffs that covered the road in places. This is one of them:

Little green Nissan came through just fine, although a belt or two apparently got wet and let us know with that particular screech that belts know how to give when they're annoyed.

This fellow gave up and decided to head for higher ground. Good idea. We did the same, getting home a little wet but none the worse for it.

The gardens look like rice paddies, and our little run (creek) down in the holler was roaring like a mighty river. It's been raining off and on (mostly on) all evening, so I expect Joe's Run is out of its banks by now. And more rain is on tap for tomorrow.

Anybody got an ark?

(Oh, the title of this post: most people would say we've had a gullywasher today, meaning that it's rained so hard it's scoured the banks of the gullies and hollers. Larry calls that kind of hard rain a gollywasher--I think his word is a good fit for the situation. And Joe's Run did have some whitecaps on it, although my pictures of those didn't come out well. Blame Larry--he thinks I'm cracked to want to stand out in pouring rain taking photos.)