Part of living along the Blue Ridge Mountains is being surrounded by lush vegetation. That requires some good spring rains to keep everything green.
While Roanoke had plenty of winter moisture this year, spring moisture has been a little spotty for the last couple of months. I even watered my lawn the first of last week.
It is hard to believe with all the snow that we had on the ground this winter that it could dry up this quickly, but we did have some very hot days in April when we were having our house painted. It was so warm, the painters had to stop early in the day because the paint was drying the brushes before they could get the paint on the house.
Also things were dry enough earlier in the fall, that I suspect we had a moisture deficit going into winter. I know the Roanoke River was not very high in November.
Whatever the reason, the ground had gotten dry, and all of us in the area need this good soaking rain that we are getting today. In the mountains there are people whose homes end up in harm's way even with moderate rain like we are having to today.
Perhaps with today's rain I can avoid getting another call from a text book company looking for the perfect drought picture. I actually got that call a couple of years ago based on the picture in the linked post.
One of the reasons we usually avoid forest fires here in the Roanoke Valley is that we have such lush green growth close to the ground most of the season, but you cannot have all that greenery without plenty of moisture.
Of course living in the mountains is a delicate balance. It takes far less rain to cause flooding here with all our steep hillsides than it does on the coast.
I have seen some serious flooding out by the north fork of the Roanoke River near the Ironto rest stop. The Roanoke River can get out of its banks here along the main roads in Roanoke and Salem as you can see from these flooding pictures from 2006.
With mountainsides capturing rain and valleys concentrating it, the Roanoke area can easily be subject to flooding. On the coast, generally a heavy rain is gone when the tide goes out.
Rain also has more staying power in the Roanoke area, the soils are better at holding the moisture than the sandy soils along the coast.
Actually I am hoping for showers all week since I over-seeded the bank behind my house. After taking out a big ash tree and a walnut tree, I need some more grass to cover some bare ground.
With today's rain and the chance of showers for the rest of the week, I just might get some grass seeds to sprout. I am not too keen on high temperatures in the fifties for the next couple of days, but that is just mountain weather.
Fortunately we have seen enough beautiful sunrises recently that it will be a while they disappear from my mind's eye.
