Last night’s rain was what we Southerners call a frog strangler. I don’t have my weather station set up at the new home, but if I did I’m sure it would’ve clocked rain rates above 5 in/sec. I’m sure we got at least two inches of rain in under 3 hours.
The good news is our roof kept the attic completely dry: the first time since we moved in. The bad news is we had a river running through our backyard: so much rain that our fence was buckling from the weight. Water streamed through the cracks up to two feet from the base of the fence.
The other bad news is that water overwhelmed every single gutter, some dramatically. Water was pouring over the front one like a waterfall. So were the ones on either side of the porch. I cleaned all of them out since we moved in but apparently there is more work to do. Kelly rightfully pointed out that this rain was unusual and we shouldn’t expect the gutters to handle this amount of water on a regular basis. True enough, as long as I can be sure they can handle the typical rain. I’m not convinced they do.
We were already on track to have the contractor who put the drainpipe in at our last yard over to start work on one here. Our next-door neighbor wants to tack on to it, too, which would be even better. The sooner we can stabilize the yard, the sooner we can get a playset put in, which should keep the kids happy.