Stormy Night

  Stormy nights aren't unusual at Pinehaven. I've lived here nearly 40 years and they're a regular occurrence. Spring, of course, is the worst. And though the numbers might not reach the level of some other storms, last night's midnight thunderstorms are ones I won't forget.

 I went to bed at 10:20 pm and Parker crawled in beside me and we were both out like lights. It had been raining hard all evening. The Tempest said we had exceeded an inch. The was plenty of lightning and thunder earlier but when I went to bed we were in a peaceful lull.

 By midnight we weren't.

 I woke to a crash and saw that the power was out. I got up and looked out the window but saw no trees down. I was going to call the outage in when the power came back on. This repealed three times.

 But it wasn't the power, nor the rain that concerned me most. It was the wind. The Tempest always reads low, probably due to its design and the fact that we have so many pines surrounding the yard. Here's what it showed:

  The wind I was hearing was buffeting the house like a hurricane. It certainly seemed to me to be in the 50 to 60 mph range. To check the Dayton airport I went to iWindSurf.com:

 That also seems low to me but I have two stations that are giving similar readings.

 Things began settling down about 1 am. Parker didn't seem to be bothered and I eventually fell back to sleep, too.

 This morning I found 1.82" of rain in the gauge. And I also found a skylight from the barn roof torn to pieces and scattered across the back yard.

 I walked into the barn expecting to find a gaping hole but everything was still covered. The fiberglass panel must have been installed as a sandwich atop an older one. Though the concrete floor was wet, the area was at least not open to the sky.

 

 Here are the pieces gathered together and laid on the back porch.

 No doubt this was a memorable storm. But it could have been worse. There's no critical damage and the house roof looks intact with no shingles lifted. All our trees still stand.

..........

Now just a minute ...

 Our neighbor's son texted me this afternoon asking if I knew a skylight was missing on our barn? I told him I though one that was doubled up was missing but I wasn't aware of a hole.

 Holy sh-t! Look at this:

 Bottom line: I need a roof repairman ... soon. It's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow. Oh well, everything got wet last night.