Last night we had a terrific rainstorm here in Mobile.

The normal water line is under the white boat.  Earlier it reached the landing on the left.

The water draining out of the yard decided to  make its exit past Monica’s raised bed garden.

Actually we have had lots of rain with plenty of thundershowers since late Wednesday. The weather forecasters described the prevailing condition as being similar to a tropical depression, but since it is too early in the season for that I guess it was just a stalled weather system. We had a strong rain front coming in from the west – which is where most of the weather here comes from – meeting warm moist air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. I have gotten accustomed to spring and early summer thunderstorms here in Mobile, but last night’s storm took the cake. It lasted several hours and seemed to come in waves. During the first wave there was a lot of rain, lightning and thunder, and the power went off. Then after a brief lull the next wave hit, with high winds later estimated to be about 60 mph (100 kmh), another power outage and even hail. This was about 3 a.m. or so in the morning and I wondered if it was ever going to stop. We learned today that we had 6.5 inches of rain last night and early this morning. And all that water was clearly visible in the yard and in our basement, where we found a foot of water this morning. Since we were not expecting that much water, we had left the lawn mower and some other stuff on the floor. We had to do some lifting prior to breakfast and getting off to services here in Mobile. Whatever we experienced here, though, was nothing compared to those poor folks along the Red River in North Dakota.