Stormy Wet Summer

I'm sure many of you have been experiancing the wet stormy weather down towards the cities this past week or so. I have heard reports of some severe storms from groups coming and going up here. I can guarentee you that we have had our fair share of storms up here as well. Early last week we had a storm come through that turned the sunny 4 o'clock weather into a dusky dark afternoon; it felt dark enough to be about 9 o'clock at night. However, the worst storm of the summer came this last sunday night. The forecast had predicted some scattered storms and about 40% chance of rain. But when our electricity went out at about 5:30, the wind picked up, and we started to see the storm clouds broiling in from the north, we knew we were in for a some rain. What started as a heavy rain turned into a pounding down pour, and a good dose of quarter size hail.

Those of us here at the lodge, sat out on the back porch and watched the storm runs its course. The sky over Clearwater lake was amazing, rolling dark, greenish tinted clouds. It was quite spooky. And the noise of the hail was great! Although we were pretty worried about those that we had recently sent out on BWCA trips... I cannot imagine what that hail would have sounded like in a tent. The reports varied from groups coming back in this last day or so, some said they had been terribly frightened, and had feared for their safety, others said that while it was scary in the its extremity, it was amazing to see. I think I would be right in the middle.

As usual, the boys had gone fishing after work. When the storm started coming through, Donny and Kevin were still out on or near Daniels lake. We were certainly curious how they were making out: if they were running back the portage, trying to outrun the hail, hunkered down under the canoe, or out on the lake still. (We hoped the last one wasn't true-no one would want to be on a lake during hail). Sure enough, right as the hail started to let up, and the rain slackened, they came jaunting around the corner of the lodge. Wet would have been an understatement.

While the rain lightened up a bit, but we did not got our electricity back until over hour or so had passed. During which we started a fire in the lodge, and all of us staff members sat around watching the fire, listening to the rain, and chatting. While that was by far the worst part of the storm, it lasted well into the night. It was almost as if the storm was circling around us and then back tracking a couple times to make sure we were good and wet. There were times the sky would lighten up, and it would look as though the storm had ended, for it to only get darker and begin to rain again. Luckily, the storm brought with it sunny weather, both monday and today have been beautiful days, sunny and on the warmer side.

-AJ