Just drove home in a torrential downpour. Actual flood problems like damage to property, loss of life, and the like, heavy rains can be kind of cool.

It's been pretty dry around here. Sounds like it's a pretty common situation around the midwest. Grass is starting to turn brown in the sun, plants are wilting, and it's been uncommonly hot so people are wilting, too.

Today, just as the peak of drive-home rush hour hit, a deluge fell from the sky. One news report stated that it rained our month's average in the hour-or-so-long storm. It was slow driving, with heavy rains making it difficult to see through the wipers slapping the water from the windows as fast as they can, occasionally creeping along at ten miles an hour or less through flooded intersections.

Waiting for the green signal light at one semaphore near the end of my commute, I noticed that everyone in front of me had stopped well short of the normal traffic line at the intersection. This particular intersection sat in a mild depression where the water had pooled. Of course, there was a drain on either side of the intersection, but it was belching out more water than it was taking in. Obviously the water from behind me, up the gentle hill, was filling the sewer and as it hit this low-point it happened that the drain worked better to let water out than to let water in.

I've seen this once before, except in that case it was an actual geyser of water shooting fifteen or twenty feet in the air, never pausing to take water in. Just a proverbial hose sticking from the ground.

The signal changed green, and the cars started pulling through the water. I drive an SUV when I'm not on my motorcycle. Today, because of the forecast and mild rain earlier in the day, I was in the Explorer. The Pontiac Fiero in front of me was pressing through the small pond at what I was sure was a terrifying speed for the driver; although travelling at barely walking speeds, the torrent of water washed over his hood and cascaded over the windshield. From behind, the water was lapping around and over the rear bumper; I wondered if water was seeping into the car. He made it through with no problem and sped up the hill on the other side, shooting spurts of water from the riverlets crossing the street.

The Fiero is a short car, to be sure. The water level wasn't high enough to crest the bottom of the other SUV nearby, and I assumed it was perhaps tickling the underbody of my truck as well. The breakneck walking speeds at which we slipped through the intersection, however, were enough to send huge plumes cascading onto the cars to either side. The water must have just been deep enough to catch in the wheel wells only to circle up and out.

On the other side, as the landscape generally increases in altitude, the occasional pools in intersections or stream across the streets offered additional blasts from the oversized tires holding me above them.

Traffic lept to just under the speed limit, the end of the storm allowing some visibility through the windows. Thankfully, except for the one near drowned two-seater, there weren't any incidents that I noticed.

I got home and dashed for the door. OK, I don't really dash--I left my stuff in the car, and took longer steps than normal... I made it in the house wet enough to warrant an immediate change, and a chagrin that I had chosen the night before to shine my shoes.