Storms
Category: Local...
Posted Sunday, April 29, 2007 at 03:23 PM [GMT-6]

I spent more than an hour yesterday cleaning off the back porch, hosing down the lawn furniture, scrubbing the accumulated gunk off the patio, beating the dust out of the chair pads. It left everything nice and tidy -- an inviting place to sit and observe the world from our back yard.

Which is what I'm doing as I type this, and the world I'm observing is dominated by a rapidly passing thunderstorm, one in a line that has pounded across west Texas since early morning, dropping an inch of welcome rain and washing the countryside as clean as our patio.

The current storm was preceded by a lightening of the clouds, to the point where it seemed that the sun might actually break through. I was hoping for a rainbow. But the clouds began to re-thicken, and lightning was barely perceptible in the southern sky. Soon, the dark line of clouds filled the sky, and deafening cracks of thunder blasted almost simultaneously with the lightning strikes which seemed to be mere blocks distant. The rain followed, hard but brief, coming straight down -- thankfully, the storm packed no significant winds, straight-line or rotating. That absence of wind allowed me to remain outside, in the chaise lounge, tapping away on the keyboard while God pounded His own keys.

The sky is bright once more, with the storm migrating north, the thunder receding to the edge of consciousness. I'm still serenaded by a steady drip from the short gutter over the exposed side of our patio, a reminder that even in west Texas, gutters need to be cleaned out more often than once a decade.

The Weather Channel's website informs me that we have an 80% chance of more rain tonight, and a 90% chance tomorrow. I can't think of many better blessings in the desert than a good day of rain followed by the prospect of even more.