Debby Lingers, Drops Load of Rain Over Area

I did not anticipate this current tropical storm, Debby, hanging around and dumping so much rain.  In fact, the expert meteorologists didn't either, blowing one forecast for its trajectory and movement after another. First it was predicted to veer westward and eventually hit Texas around Houston. Then that model was scrubbed in favor of the idea that it would move north into Georgia and merge with a frontal system, speeding up in the process.  Instead, though, the damned thing just stayed stationary for about three days, dumping flood-level rains over the panhandle...and my Gainesville.  But...

Apparently, we have been spared catastrophic flooding around Gainesville by dint of another previously developing problem: chronic drought, which had pretty much parched our ground dry.  Yes, there is a lot of standing water around right now as it keeps on and on with the rain.  But I look at a nearby drainage ditch and see its water level far below what I've seen on many other occasions when the rainfall was more consistent, if not as intense, over the span of weeks.  So the soil has a long, long, way to go before it's saturated.  In fact, I have a prediction...

I predict that, before August rolls around, they'll be lamenting the drought we're back in, probably accompanied by scattered brush fires sending noxious smoky haze over us.  Why can't we instead have a "normal" summer? Seems like, if memory serves me correctly, we did have one back in 2003...