Monsoon in Salem

Yesterday was the heaviest rain storm I have ever seen. Neal had a doctor appointment at 1:30 that I accompanied him to. When we went to the appointment the sky was blue and the temperatures pleasant. I threw my sweat shirt in the back seat of the car to wear to Wal-Mart after the doctors appointment. As I drove to Wal-Mart around 3:00 I noticed the wind had really picked up, but didn't really think anything about it. Around 4:00 we could hear the rain pounding the roof of the Wal-Mart store. I thought "Oh great! I'm going to drown going out to the car." But I hoped that since I still had more shopping to do the rain would ease up by the time I went to the car. Well, Neal called at 4:10 and said there was a tornado watch and that it was raining like crazy and could I please come pick him up. Well, I promptly forgot about getting the rest of the items on my shopping list, raced to the checkout, paid for my very large cart full and made a dash to the car. To say the least the rain had not let up and I was being met with not only the largest rain drops I've ever encountered, but the largest raindrops coming down in torrents. By the time I got my purchases depositede in my trunk and the cart returned to its stall, I looked worse than the proverbial drowned rat! I was soaked through and through. When I got down to pick Neal up I looked like I had just taken a bath with my clothes on! You could literally wring out my sweat shirt! By the time I had gotten Neal from work, made a quick stop to deliver a very important birthday wish, and got home, the storm had pretty much passed and the rain was back to normal heavy Salem rain. The lightening and thunder, however, lasted a few more hours.

I have to say it was a beautiful storm. I wish I could have been home with my camera instead of driving in the river that used to be the streets of Salem! And my poor kitty, he just layed there and quivered. To let you know just how severe the storm was and how much my kitty didn't like it, he didn't even finish his dinner! That is one bad storm!

Here are a few pictures I got off KGW's website of some of the rain and lightening we had yesterday. Sorry I didn't have my camera on me!