Walsingham River

  When I left for work this morning I went out to try and read the rain gauge, but I was having trouble seeing where the water line was. I wanted to check it because the rain woke me up at 5:15. It was coming down hard, very hard, and that lasted for more then 30 minutes.

  So took off my socks, grabbed my water shoes, rolled up my pants and went wading. Rain like that usually floods the side yards and often the front yard too. This morning there was standing water in the back yard, too. (More then 60 minutes later Edward said it was still flooded.)  I usually call the yard Lake Morgan at times like these.

  I couldn't see the water line becuase the water was over the top of the measurable area of the gauge. It’s a five inch gauge. I had to dump some out into a container, then dump out the 5 inches it could measure and pour the rest back in to get it measured accurately.  It had six inches this morning. I had dumped that gauge before dark last night. I didn’t figure it would fill again, but I knew we were expecting more.

  The rainfall rate reached between 2.5-3 inches an hour before dawn. Most of the rain in that gauge was from 4 am as it just kept raining harder and harder.

  The grand total in our gauge.  11 inches in about 30 hours from Tropical Storm Colin.

  Thank the powers-that-be we 1) live on a “hill” (55 ft above sea level) (this is Pinellas County, that's high), 2) Florida has sandy soil that drains, 3) I live on said sandy soil and 4) my neighborhood drains well.  I can’t say the same for other places in the area.  The phone went off at 6:10 with a flash flood warning right after I got up.  

  Driving in wasn’t too bad, though it was raining pretty good.  It faked me out since it had let up at the house. I drove into heavier showers. The retaining ponds in the area are overflowing.

  And this is the ditch behind the house, otherwise known as "Walsingham River” when we get rain like this. That much rain makes for an impressive show.  We’re pretty sure the far side is lower then our side. We’ve never seen it get to the top, though we have seen it higher then this. And that's down about 12 inches from where is was right before dawn. The ditch is at least half again deep as that small tree is high, if not deeper. It’s a lot of water.

  It’s still raining in St Petersburg, though it’s stopped at the house, for the moment. This line of showers is moving south slowly. So it may keep up for a while yet. We’ve already gotten our monthly allotment of rain for June. And it’s only the 7th. Hopefully we can retain some of this water for drier spells later in the year, long after the Walsingham River has returned to normal levels.