Darkness and the Densest Rain

By the time the front reached Georgia, the storm had already killed 11 people in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama.

Everyone knew it was coming.  All  week, weather reports were providing dire warnings and the local news was warning people to plan on staying indoors on Saturday.  Much of the state was under a tornado watch.  With pin-point accuracy,  the weather app on my phone said that the precipitation probability would jump from zero to 100% between 5 and 6 pm, and then fall back to zero after midnight.

The whole day leading up to the storm had been eerie - unnaturally warm for January and heavily overcast.  Mid-afternoon looked like dusk and the cats were nervously following me around the house all day as if they sensed something was wrong.

I was eating supper when the rain started and when it did arrive, it was an immediate deluge. There was no mistaking it - the front arrived with a sudden wallop of hard rain and stiff winds.  On top of the sound of raindrops, I could hear twigs, branches, and acorns hitting the roof.   And then, at 5:37 pm,. the lights went out.

Faithful readers know that power losses occur frequently here when it rains.  Sometimes they last only a few minutes and other times they can last days.  There's no telling how long a blackout may occur.  I didn't hear a tree fall in the neighborhood and when I tried to look outside to see if anything was down, I couldn't even see across the yard due to darkness and the dense rain. I stood out on the porch for a while and was impressed by the intensity of the storm.  Rain was pouring down (according to NWS records, over an inch came down in about an hour), visibility was negligible, and silent bolts of lightning occasionally lit the night sky.  I don't know why I couldn't hear the thunder.

I lit some candles and settled in for a wait of who knows how long.  It was still early and I could have gone out to try and find a bar or restaurant with lights, but there was no way I was going to drive anywhere in that wind and rain, not to mention the chance of falling trees and flash floods.  I didn't know how long the battery in my phone would have to last, so I didn't want to pass the time by scrolling through apps and updates.  I was resigned to just sit alone with my thoughts until it was late enough to go to bed, and then see what the morning would bring.  

At 7:00 pm, the cats reminded me it was their feeding time.  They couldn't understand why I was just sitting at the kitchen counter in front of a couple of candles all evening.  I put the tea kettle on, using a match to start the gas stove, and dished out a can of food for the cats.

And while I was doing just that, the lights suddenly came back on.  I hadn't seen any power company trucks on the road and have no idea from where the power was restored.  But after only about 90 minutes of darkness, I had power again, as well as cable and internet, and by 8:00 the storm had passed and the rain was reduced to a mere drizzle.

No falling trees had demolished my house, the roof and gutters held up to the storm, and the loss of power was relatively short.  I felt like I had won something.

According to what I learned from the Nextdoor app, /r/Atlanta, and Facebook after the lights came back on, power outages were widespread across the metro area and many didn't get their power back on until many hours after I had.  Storm damage had been extensive.  Although not on my street, many trees were down including this one only a couple blocks from me:

Today was bright and sunny - not a cloud in the sky - although rain and thunderstorms are forecast for the whole of next week.

Relatively speaking, we didn't have it too bad here.  In Australia, smoke plumes from the bush fires reach so high up into the stratosphere that it's creating its own weather system, and the lightening generated is starting new fires in turn.  A volcano is erupting next to Manila in the Philippines, and storm-battered Puerto Rico is still racked by aftershocks from the devastating earthquake last week.  

We can't blame the geologic hazards on climate change, and it would be incorrect to say that the storms that racked the South yesterday were caused by climate change.  But it would be correct to say that the increased frequency of storms like yesterday's and the intensity of the storms is due, at the very least in part, to climate change.