Summer of Endless Rain

We've been getting a TON of rain lately. For awhile it was an every afternoon/evening thing. It was so bad, I didn't ride my bike to work for nearly 2 weeks. Around here, this much rain is highly unusual. We're supposed to have hot and dry summers, not muggy and wet summers. Not to say I don't enjoy the rain; it's just really strange to have Seattle like weather around here. And that's not all. We've been getting a lot of tornado warnings too. In some places the alarms would go off about every five minutes.

About a week ago we were experiencing one of the now typical afternoon thunderstorms. Some of the guests asked if we should be in the basement since they heard of a tornado warning nearby. Origionally, we said everything was fine because the warning was east of us. About ten minutes later, a security guard comes in and tells us that we have to send the guests to the basement of guest services or to the parking garage. Not sure of what else to do, we do as we're told only to be informed five minutes later that it wasn't necessary to send the guests below ground. Needless to say, it was a really hectic day, especially since the guests tend to take cover in the gift shop during the rain, making it very crowded and noisy.

Last Friday I saw the craziest rain I have ever seen in this area in my entire 22 years of life. I was upstairs when I heard booming thunder followed by the sound of pounding rain on the roof. Looking outside I could see sheets of diagonal rain blowing through the parking lots. Rivers of rain streamed down the windows and the branches of trees shivered fiercely in the gusts of wind. It looked like images of hurricanes that I've seen on TV, only, this is a land locked state. We don't get hurricanes. Anyway, there were a lot of people who ran through the rain to take cover in the gift shop. Many of them were drenched from head to toe with water still dripping from their noses. A softball team from Alaska asked me when the rain would stop. When I found out that they weren't from around here, I told them that the saying goes that if you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes and it will change. However, the rain could easily last from 15 mintues to all night to days. Around here, it's impossible to predict the weather and how long it will last. As it turns out, the crazy rain lasted about 20-25 minutes before giving way to bright, warm sunshine.

Yep, that's how it works around here. Crazy huh?