Thursday October 11, 2018

Michael ripped up the pan handle of Florida as an almost Cat 5 storm. I mentioned yesterday we were getting rain all day from the outer bands. Nope, we were getting rain from a front pulling moisture from the Atlantic off the coast of NC that had nothing to do with Michael.

We had about 3 to 4 inches yesterday from that system. Last night as Michael started heading our way we had another 3.5 inches overnight when I dumped the rain gauge this morning about 8:15. It was pouring buckets but I finally persuaded Colin to go out and do his business. He’s no dummy. He ran for the pines along the side of the yard and we went potty underneath them.

I waited until about 9:30 then decided to go to the gym since I needed to go to the library and the grocery store. The bands of rain went from a steady rain to heavy downpours in a matter of minutes. My route did not take me into any low lying areas that the streets would have flooded but some of the roads had some deep places that the new car handled very well.

I  just checked the rain gauge. We’ve had another 3.5 inches since this morning with more on the way. Once this rain goes out of here we are supposed to get 20 to 30 mph winds with gusts to 50. Not overly exceptional for us, as it gets far worse than that during the winter. But, with the ground as wet as it is, trees may start coming down. That’s why I went out this morning instead of waiting until this afternoon.