When we left Longboat Key, Florida, yesterday morning, it was sunny and 80 degrees F; these pleasant conditions persisted as we drove northward, as far a southern Georgia. An hour south of Atlanta, however, clouds began to thicken and intermittent showers cooled the air into the forties; by the time we reached that city, a steady rain was falling and dense fog shrouded the skyscrapers and the landscape.
We spent the night just north of Atlanta, in Marietta, and learned from the desk clerk that rain had been falling for days. Throughout the night, lightning flashed and thunder rolled and, by morning, a flash flood advisory covered all of northwest Georgia; indeed, the streams were bank full along the Interstate all the way to Chattanooga. Once we reached Tennessee, the rain had stopped but all of the rivers westward to Nashville and northward to Paducah were out of their banks and shallow lakes covered many of the fields.
Flooding was especially severe at the mouths of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers and along the lower Ohio itself. Recurrent heavy rains, combined with melting snow and cold, compact soil, were responsible for the soggy landscape, setting the stage for both the spring waterfowl migration and the verdant months ahead.
See also: Flood Season
We spent the night just north of Atlanta, in Marietta, and learned from the desk clerk that rain had been falling for days. Throughout the night, lightning flashed and thunder rolled and, by morning, a flash flood advisory covered all of northwest Georgia; indeed, the streams were bank full along the Interstate all the way to Chattanooga. Once we reached Tennessee, the rain had stopped but all of the rivers westward to Nashville and northward to Paducah were out of their banks and shallow lakes covered many of the fields.
Flooding was especially severe at the mouths of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers and along the lower Ohio itself. Recurrent heavy rains, combined with melting snow and cold, compact soil, were responsible for the soggy landscape, setting the stage for both the spring waterfowl migration and the verdant months ahead.
See also: Flood Season
