Today we are up in the White Mountains, and we required nice weather for approximately ten minutes, from 1:30 to 1:40pm, during the annual parade. And by "nice," I mean moderately dry at the minimum.
It rained off and on all morning and then was actually sunny around noontime. There were still some menacing black clouds visible in other parts of the sky, but we had pure blue and fluffy white above us. We walked into town, ordered our hot dogs and hamburgers, and waited in line with everyone else. At about 1:27, the sky turned black, the wind started howling, and we had a torrential downpour the likes of which I have never experienced. In addition to the blinding, pummeling rain, there was scary-loud thunder, ziggy-zaggy bolts of lightning, and wind-blown hail that felt like someone shooting a staple-gun at my bare calves.
For god-knows-what-reason, they decided to start the parade anyhow. The fire trucks came by with volunteers throwing Tootsie Rolls out the windows into puddles for kids to fish out, the various community groups' floats with their drenched costumed riders, the war veterans waving from behind the fogged-up windows of their antique cars, and even a full band under a makeshift tent. They drove a little more quickly than usual, and the whole procession was done by 1:37, at which time the rain stopped completely.
We all looked at each other, wolfed down our soggy sandwiches, and walked back home in squishy sneakers to change into dry clothes.
Then we drove to Chutters and bought several bags of penny candy.
Good grief, don't they have weather radar up there?
Posted by: Elena | July 05, 2009 at 12:12 PM
That's nuts! We have weather like that sometimes too, but this 4th was 90 degrees. There was no ice anywhere to be found and EXTREME fire danger. It's been so dry and we have trees everywhere;that's the bad part about too much nice weather.
Posted by: Margaret | July 05, 2009 at 06:21 PM
Sounds like one of our evenings in DC. We had lightning, people screaming and running in all directions, trees splitting, etc. You are a hardier clan than we if you stood around watching a parade in that kind of weather.
Posted by: JP | July 06, 2009 at 07:55 AM