Thursday, August 11, 2016

Raindrops

It is going on midnight.  I have opened a couple of windows to let the fresh air in.  I can listen to the raindrops hit on the ledge outside my living room windows.  The temperature has dropped 20 degrees since suppertime.

The rainfall in my town has been a bit odd this summer.  I watch the weather radar online when I know there is a chance of a storm headed my way.  This year the rain has fizzled out before it got here or it divided, part going north of us and part going to the south.

But tonight it has been raining for at least an hour and it looks like it will continue for a while.  Then behind that there is another line of stormy weather headed our way.  If it doesn't break up, that should get here by early morning.

There is thunder, too.  Not the sharp cracks of lightning strikes, but the kind that sort of rolls around in the clouds overhead.  When my kids were young they said that kind of thunder sounded like the angels were bowling up in the clouds.

If I had a garden I would be delighted with this rain.  As it is, it's a welcome sound.  The slight breeze coming in combined with the sound of rain makes for good sleeping - something I seem to do less and less these days.  I wonder if others experience the same thing - the older I get the less I am inclined to sleep.

16 comments:

  1. I seem to be the other way around with sleep, but it might be my heart condition, or it might (for now) be frustration at being too hot for me to be outside.

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  2. Gorges...Except for the usual reasons those of our vintage need to get up at night, I used to be able to sleep 7 or 8 hours at a time. Now days I am awake until 3 or 4 AM and then sleep only 3 or 4 hours at a stretch. Sometimes I grab a nap during the day if I can. But I think you are right in that the weather or other health issues may have a lot to do with it.

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  3. We had almost 2" in hr or so. Washed out last night of the carnival. The girls got free ride bands and never got to use, Them. Next year they get free ones to use to make up for it.

    I too saw the rain moving in from the Dakotas. I have US Weather service radar saved but the upper Mississippi valley and it shows area. Had a clap of thunder last night so loud, both my son and I jumped out of our skin.

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  4. 5 hours sleep for seniors and usually a nap in the day, are par.
    that's why i'm up now. 5;24 a.m.
    cannot sleep.

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  5. I don't know how much rain we got here - just rained steady with no downpours and rumbling thunder. Too bad about the carnival getting rained out, but I'm glad the kids can get their free bands for next year.

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  6. Deb...Well, I'm glad to hear that. I thought it was just me who didn't sleep much. :)

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  7. Sleep - what's that? No matter how tired I am or what time I hit the hay, it takes me hours to fall asleep. So much stuff rattling around in the old brain! Of course Charlie crowing at 3 am doesn't help matters any...

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  8. Chickenmom...I know what you mean about stuff rattling around in your brain. I have often wished that I had a little switch located behind my left ear that I could use to switch off my brain when I wanted to sleep. Don't know what to do about Charlie's 3 am chorus...

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  9. We had a long rain last night as well. Still going on right now at almost one in the afternoon. I'm always grateful for rain this time of year. First, it keeps off the threat of fire in the woods. Second, it keeps the creeks up and everything stays green.

    We had a bad drought here in the late 1980's. It was miserable. The creeks went dry and there were fires all over the mountains.

    Nice to be snug in your apartment and watching the rain come down, isn't it? Wonder why that is. Maybe because we lived in caves so long ago, and feeling sheltered is a human requisite.

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  10. Harry...This was the first soaking rain we have had in a long time. It was welcome, although those about 100 miles to the west of us might not agree. There they had between 8 and 12 inches of rain in a fairly short period of time and there is quite a bit of flooding. Guess the storm knocked itself out before reaching us.

    I remember being a lot more concerned about fires when living in the northern part of the state. It didn't take much to get a fire going in the dry pine woods, but it took an awful lot to stop it.

    Yes, it is nice to be here in my cozy apartment, watching the weather. It is sort of like a cave.....with coffee and cookies and WiFi. :)

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  11. I just want to see a few days of nice weather where I am. Daily severe thunderstorm warnings here.

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  12. I imagine that puts a crimp in your motorcycle trips, doesn't it. The weather here has been unusual. In a normal year we would have had thunderstorms, straight line winds, hail and a tornado warning or two thrown in for good measure. Other parts of Minnesota have had a little bit of stormy weather, but where I live has been relatively quiet. Not that I am complaining.....

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  13. Your second paragraph could have been written by me. This happens all the time since I live on a plateau. That said, we are the tornado magnet for the state. However, we know that if a storm is coming over several towns to the west, we are in for a tornado.

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  14. Linda...Our weather usually comes in from the west and by the time a storm reaches here it has normally gathered strength. But this year that hasn't happened and the storms have mostly just died out by the time they get this far. I'm not going to complain. :)

    Seems like tornadoes in Minnesota occur mostly in the west and central parts of the state where the land is flat and is mostly farm fields. Tornado season has been pretty quiet this year compared to other years. It seems to be just an unusual weather year all around.

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  15. Rain would be nice... as we don't get much of it here anytime. I believe the last really measurable amount was back in May. We probably won't get anything until October. If we didn't have access to water from our wells or irrigation nothing would grow here. We only have an annual precipitation, including snowfall of around 12 to 15 inches per year.

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  16. Jim...I looked up the averages for my area just to make sure I wasn't telling a lie. :)
    We average 32 inches of rainfall per year and 36 inches of snow. I know we aren't close to the amount of rain we usually get although sometimes the fall season is fairly wet. It just seems like the rain has been going around us this year and the lack of summer storms is unusual, too. Our last couple of winters have been drier too, but that could change in a hurry. I have seen snow drifts in the country that were nearly to the top of telephone poles. I remember one snowstorm when I was a kid...the snow drifts were hard on top and Dad and I walked a block to a little corner grocery. We were walking on top of the cars parked on the street because they were completely buried except for the radio antennas sticking up out of the snow.

    The only experience I have had with warmer winters is when I lived in southern Missouri for a while. Their attitude was, "God put the snow on the roads - let Him worry about it." There is so much water here, what with all the lakes and ponds, I don't know how I would like living where it is so dry, like you do.

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