Stormy Weather

The eastern US, particularly the South, is known for stormy weather. The weather was pretty mild until we got to Alabama. When we pulled into the Buc-ee's near Mobile, it was hot and muggy with thunderheads building. A half hour later, as we were leaving, those thunderheads opened up and we got dumped on. 

While we were in Florida, we had thunderstorms about three of the seven days we were there, including one after church on Sunday while we were riding the bike!🌩️🏍️ While we were in Louisiana, we drove through a sudden cloudburst. A "Louisiana carwash", if you will.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Beryl was barreling across the Caribbean but it was so far away and neither Florida nor Louisiana were in its proprojected path, so we didn't pay much attention to it. That was until...

Beryl's storm path as of the evening of July 8. If you look closely at the picture, I placed a pink dot on our position within Oklahoma at the time.

Among Angela's experiences during our trip, she can now say she's experienced a tropical cyclone 😳🙂. Hurricane Beryl was notable for being an early season category 5 hurricane. Thankfully, it did not make landfall at that strength. It swept across the Yucatán Peninsula as a category 3 (still a horrendous storm). It lost strength and reentered the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical storm. It briefly regained hurricane strength before making landfall just south of Houston. It then moved north and east. By the time the center of the storm passed within about 50-70 miles of our position, it had downgraded to a tropical depression. There wasn't much wind but plenty of rain. The rain started early Monday afternoon and increased in intensity through the evening. In just under 24 hours, over five inches of rain fell on the area. The storm beat down the dust and broke the heat in the area which made for some wonderful riding.

After a couple days of delightful weather, we made our way to Joplin Missouri...

This is a frame from a video taken at 4am on Friday, July 12. We were awakened by a sudden thunderstorm that blew up over us in Joplin Missouri. The storm dumped 4 inches of rain in about as many hours.

As we continued our trek west, we rolled through spotty thundershowers all across Kansas and Wyoming. 

As many of you know, we have arrived safely home. Now we're dealing with smoke from wildfires... 😒😖 I'd much rather put up with thunderstorms and cloudbursts... Oh well...

There are many more adventures to share so stay tuned. Keep cool, dry, and breathe easy. 

Much love to all...

Arnold and Angela.