Thursday, August 5, 2010

Sweat! Sweat! Pant! Pant!

The jungles of Panama couldn't have been any steamier, than it was here today. It was cool and dry in the house when I got up this morning, but I knew it was very humid outdoors, because all of my windows were fogged up on the outside.

The trash was piling up, so I had to make a trip to the dump after lunch. Stepping out the door, was like walking into a steam bath! I looked at the weather data on the computer and realized why. It was 86 °F/30 °C, and the humidity was 74%. In the few minutes it took to load the trash into the back of the truck, I was ringing wet. Thankfully my Dakota has an excellent air conditioner.

With the temperature eventually rising into the 90's, and with all of that humidity, I knew there would be late afternoon thundershowers. Looking at the Doppler radar map at about 6:00 PM, I expected to see thunderstorms brewing over the Blue Ridge, but there were none. However there was a large formation of storms west of the Shenandoah Valley, over the Alleghenies in West Virginia. By 8:30 PM, they had crossed the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge, and were blowing through Charlottesville, 29 miles west of here. Fifteen minutes later, I began to hear thunder, and then drops of rain hitting the skylights. A few minutes later all hell broke loose, as lightning bolts began to strike all around. It was too dark outside to see anything, so I will have to wait until tomorrow to survey the property for any broken limbs or toppled trees. The thunderstorms have been particularly destructive this summer, because of the extreme heat.

I've noticed several posts from several blogs show up on my reading list in the last few days, but when you click on them, there is no post. Later a post under the same title shows up, and when you click on that one, the post is there. The same thing happened to this post. It accidentally posted, while I was still typing it, so I had to delete it, and redo it. I don't know how it got posted,
because I never clicked on the "publish" button. It just happened while I was typing. I wonder if Blogger has some kind of a bug?

Melissa XX

7 comments:

Caroline said...

Yesterday a visitor arrived, passed on your greeting, and the weather is marvellous as is the sunrise this morning, all to make it look as if my reporting of a grey wet summer has all been in my imagination. I remember those summer storms during a summer visit to the skyline drive through the Appalachians in "67 echoing through the mountains and water in spectacular quantities, we were camping!

Steam baths are said to be invigorating!

Lots of no page available here too, electronics hey.

Caroline xxx

Stace said...

Blame the programmers. Wait, no, then you'd be blaming me... Blame the busines analysts!!!

I'm trying to work out if I want to see one of your thunderstorms or not... In the internet 'get to know you' type mails that were going around in the late nineties one of the questions was 'Thunderstorms - cool or scary?' I always answered yes...

Hope the damage isn't too bad (or rather that you have none).

Stace

Halle said...

I used to love watching thunderstorms as a kid. We lived in apartments in the city, and that sort of display of the power of nature never meant what it means now.

These days, although I am not afraid of them, my respect for the damage they can cause is elevated by personal experience. Living in a forest can be beautiful and peaceful too, but definitely gives you more to be concerned about in high winds and lightning.

Hope you didn't need the chainsaw, and that all your electrical equipment survived intact!

Halle said...

BTW, your post appears twice on my 'reading list' this morning. Sometimes 'interesting' stuff happens in vacuumland!

eleanor said...

Our summer pattern of 3:00PM rainstorms has not been happening this year. One could almost set a watch by the afternoon rain, not this year though. I think thunderestorms are way cool as long as we're not on the ocean; been there and it's not fun. Hope the AC is good for you, it's been hot here too.

El

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the lovely wish given to me from Caroline. I gave you a hug right back, through her. I did make her growing tender breasts a little sore giving it but I hope you felt me sending you some love.
xx

Calie said...

Melissa, my dear, if I recall correctly, it was just a few months ago that you were complaining about the long winter! May you have a day or two at 70 degrees and 60% humidity before the snow falls!

Now get that camera ready. I want to see those red, red, leaves in October, girlfriend!

Calie xxx