There was nothing in the forecast yesterday morning about rain or storms or such but the sky I saw forming when I stepped outside around three-thirty yesterday afternoon sure suggested both and that right soon. Clouds darkened the whole of the western sky and much of the southern as well. Majestic but threatening, layers rose up from the horizon, spreading toward the east and on the hunt so to speak.

Within five minutes, a push of wind was sending a cloud of dust ahead of the storm. I later heard that dust wall was so thick and dark a bit south of us that it forced traffic to stop on US-77 between Newkirk and Ponca City. Here in Ark City it merely imitated the look of heavy rain a mile away. In about thirty minutes, the imitation gave way to the real thing.

It wasn’t nearly as hard as the rain that came a couple of weeks ago. Nor did it last as long. In fact, the official measuring station that is located a few miles north at Strother Field recorded less than a tenth of an inch. We might have had a bit more than that here but I have no ready means of proof or evidence to that effect. Of course, given how things seem to work these days, I suppose I could claim we had an inch-and-a-half of rain and then ridicule and vilify anyone who disagrees with me as it certainly seems that making the claim automatically refutes any amount of evidence to the contrary.

However, this not being sufficient cause for such action I believe I’ll just accept the official report, mutter something like “Well, it seemed like more than that,” and let it go, at least for now. No matter how much or how little rain we had, we certainly had rain and it came without the customary notice from the National Weather Service.

We have engineered sophisticated formulas, modeling patterns, algorithms, and fabricated multi-million dollar pieces of equipment. We have flown above and into hurricanes and tempted the strength of tornadoes. And even yet we find that sometimes storms, economic spikes and crashes, and digestive afflictions as well, sometimes come up on us with much less warning than we expected.

And though that is often unpleasant and sometimes downright embarrassing, it is not altogether unfortunate that we occasionally be reminded of how weak we are and how much in this world is not within our control.

H. Arnett
7/17/19