Deluge!

We have had a lot of rain the last couple of days, a really good soaking.  Last night was forecast as showers with a possible thunderstorm.  Well!  About 1am we were woken up by the start of a 6 hour thunderstorm.  Never in my life have I experienced nonstop lightning and thunder for that period of time, it was amazing.  But even more incredible was the rain.  Torrential, nonstop rain, so loud on the shed roof that for a while we couldn't even hear the thunder!  The rain also went on nonstop for about 6 hours and every time we thought it was the heaviest we had ever heard, it got heavier!  We had a look at the weather bureau's radar imaging and sitting over Albany to Denmark was this huge red/orange/yellow heavy rain image.  And it just sat there, normally these images move on fairly promptly but oh no, this one just sat there, right over our shed I reckon!  Apparently we had about 100 mL of rain in that time, how about that!!  So, in the last 2 days, we have had our entire June average rainfall.

This morning we donned our wet weather gear and wellies and went down to have a look at our winter creek.  2 days ago it had just started flowing, just a trickle for the most part.  We could hear the tumultuous water long before we go to the creek.  It was insane, never before have we seen the creek so powerful.  Silt filled water was tearing through the creek bed and over the top, flooding out over the low lying areas alongside.  The waterfall rock was invisible under cascades of grey water and the edges of the lower parts of the creek were full of slippery grey mud.  The flat bridge of planks that Steve had made to drive Helga the ride-on mower over to the other side of the creek had been washed away, luckily not far so the planks have been rescued and will be repositioned when the water subsides.

 And go figure, as of  8am this morning, the sun had been shining, a light breeze is blowing and the temperature warmed up to a very pleasant 21 degrees.  We are very fortunate that our shed is intact, we didn't lose power, and apart from a few ruts in the gravel driveway, we have no damage.  What an experience! Nature is amazing!  :-)

I had a go at videoing the creek with my camera.  It's a bit dark as the weather was still yucky but if you are interested in having a look, here they are.  Ok, this is my first ever attempt at uploading or using a Youtube video, so I hope it works!