I feel like I’ve written specifically about the weather more often this year. 2025 has seen so many extremes. Right after New Years we saw a blizzard that dumped more than a foot of snow. We also had multiple snow days after that and extreme cold. I’ve only seen that level of snow one other time in my life, and I think that was like 40 years ago. Most winters we get an inch here or there and maybe one “big storm” where you get 5 or 6 inches at once.
Next we got to the spring which was one of the wettest on record. I think April ended up being number 7 all-time for rainfall in Cincy. We had flooding downtown where water reached into the stadium parking garages.
This summer has been crazy hot. June had numerous days over 90 with heat index into the triple digits. We’re currently in another stretch of 90+ with the “real feel” over 100 that is forecasted to continue for another 6 days. I’m not mad about it. I hate the cold. That said, I sure would appreciate a few days of 82 and sunny. Along with the hot, there has also been a lot of rain. It’s been the kind of rain where there are pop-up thunderstorms. It’s like 90 all day and then “BAM” you have thunder, lightening and torrential rain for 15 minutes that creates a kettle of steaminess that makes me think, “This must be what it’s like to live in a rainforest.”
The most surreal weather event of the season, and perhaps one of the craziest things I have ever experienced happened last week. The forecast said it was going to rain on Saturday and Sunday so S & I decided to team up immediately after work and mow the yard. He did some, I did some and while he trimmed, I grabbed a pizza. I pull in the driveway just as he’s putting the mower away. This was just before 7PM. Right then the sky opened up an the rain came down in buckets. It was one of those rains that are so hard that they usually don’t last long. This one lasted for about 80-90 minutes and gave us 4 inches of rain. I wish I had a picture of the creek before but it was pretty low. It had water in it, but not a lot.
Below is what it looked like after about 30 minutes. We had finished our pizza and had just walked over to look out the window. We love our creek and enjoy when it rains and there are waterfalls. I had just said, “I wonder how long it will take for us to have a waterfall”, because it had been quite low. Um, clearly not long!
This was after about 40 minutes:
And after about 60 minutes:
There were whole logs and other debris being swept down the creek. Clearly that tree is not normally under water. You can sort of see the pile of debris that began to gather there. Now that the water has receded, it looks like a big beaver dam of sticks and branches. Anyway, all of those things you read about or see on the news where the water rises quickly and people get trapped? This gave us a glimpse of what that is like. While we had no damage to our home or property (beyond the big pile of stuff that now resides in the creek), if we were at a lower elevation or downhill from this, there would have been nowhere to go. It happened too fast.
It was very surreal. And, since there was no damage, it was pretty cool to watch.
