I'm sure TJ knows what i mean (although he hasn't sent me a PM back yet ) I can honestly say i have never seen a storm like that. It was about five hours of non-stop, hard rain. Eighty mph winds, lightning every few seconds, flooding of the areas around the river. It was intense and i had no idea it was even supposed to rain today.

My friends and i have pictures of a park a few blocks from my house rappidly flooding. I wish i could get them off my cell phone, maybe i can get it later.

We have more storms coming tomorrow although not as bad. They may not even hit my area but down south it will. It was fucking nuts.

Yeah, the lightening was bad ass. It looked like strobe lights were on in the sky for about an hour before the storm actually hit. The biggest baddest stuff went around us. Either hitting Sioux City to the south or Sioux Center to the north. A bunch of roads got washed out, some cars got washed off the road, and some cars lost windshields due to hail. Good times. Good times.

Fun fact: before this week of rain, we hadn't gotten any considerable moisture for 2 months and the corn crops were beginning to fail. The earlier rains prepped the soil for the corn to withstand the winds of this most recent storm. Had the storm preceded the lighter rains, the corn crops out here would be devastated. The winds alone would have flattened the stalks.

That happened last year. A mild storm followed a drought and on Monday we had miles of crops 6 feet high, and on Tuesday we saw huge swaths of corn fields just flattened. It's pretty crazy.

You aint kidding. It sounds like we got hit harder than you (of course you know the details from the PM's), although there are some places, like downtown chicago that got hit way harder. I am still in awe from what i saw today. There was one point i was trapped in a car with rising flood water coming from a river onto the road, where i though i might die. Trust people when they say that flash floods are dangerous. Stay away from that shit. I am going to get the pics off my cell phone tomorrow and post them here. There are a few that show just how fast the water came in. What a fucked up day. That trip to the bar took the edge off (the bar we went to ended up having a tree that crashed through the outdoor area, which is actually most of the bar). Right now, i am so glad i don't live right next to the river that is in my town. There are houses along it which have to at least have their basements flooded. As long as i don't wake up with water in my room tomorrow, i'll be happy. Just two more rounds of storms (including the ones going on at this second) and we will be done for at least the next week. I am completely serious when i say i have never seen a storm like that before. I have a funny story about today but i will tell you all when i stop shaking from my near death experience.

These storms just gave me one of the saddest moments i have ever seen. Its raining a little but the lightning and thunder has been pretty intense for the past half hour or so. Any way, my two dogs, which are both very little dogs (not puppies, just part of a small breed) were both so afraid from the thunder that that actually came up to my bedroom door and were trying to get in. That may not sound amazing but they never try to get into my room and they usually stay in the room right next to it (which is the kitchen, i live in an addition room). I haven't seen them try to get in here in years. I heard them scratching on the door and as soon as i opened it, they ran in and were all over me. I can't even remember the last time i saw them so scared. Poor little guys. There are very few things sadder than dogs that are scared to death, especially yours.

And if you are wondering what i did with them. I just let them in my parent's room, since they love them the most, and they both seem pretty happy now.

holy shit. Glad you (and the dogs) are OK. Looking forward to seeing the pics.

Thanks man.

My family and I should be alright as long as doesn't rain about another three feet or so in the next day (which it won't). There is no threat from tornados or anything like that, since all we are facing now is rain. There is maybe a 5% chance my house will actually flood but other wise, i am just in shock from this storm that, some how, no one saw coming and to be outside, in the middle of it, was too much. When you live in illinois you see some pretty bad storms but when the worst one you ever saw just passed, it is hard to get over it right away. When the sixty year old weather man on the local news station says this was the worst storm he had seen on this scale (which covered half of illinois and many of the surrounding states at one point), you know it was something big.

I did find a way to get the pics up, it will have to wait until the afternoon though, since i need sleep. Here is hoping everyone in my town is alright when i wake up.

new post with pics at the bottom

I'm getting error messages from each URL....

hmmmm...

I went down the street from my house, which is the downtown area, the entire area is just filled with downed trees. I am going to take some more pictures but for now, these are the ones from yesterday. I hope people can actually see them. They aren't the best quality, since all i had was a cell phone camera but it should be alright. Also, i was unable to directly upload them, so i had to go with links. It should hopefully work. If not, i will fix it all later.


So here is the first picture that i took, this is just when it started raining yesterday. It had been raining for the past few days and it was already flooding around here. It is sort of hard to see in the first pic. It is of a park bench. Usually, this bench has about ten feet of dry land in front of it, then there are a couple of stone steps that go down into the river (probably so people can feed the ducks). At this point the water was already up to the legs.



About a half hour later, after it had been raining awhile the water is up to the arm rests.



And about another hour later, the bench is nearly under water.





These pics are from a different park down the street, also on the river.

Here is a pic from right as the storm came. You can see the river in the distance. It is about four feet inland at that point. There is a field in between the play ground and the river, which is about 400 feet across, has some puddles but is mainly dry.



Here is a picture from the same spot about an hour later. The water is probably about two feet deep at that point.




At the same park, we were standing under this little gazebo (that is where the two pics above were taken from). Here is early on. You can see it is a little bit in there but the river is no where near it. That is my friend by the way.



Here is the same gazebo about an hour later. It went from no water near it to having it filled with water. This is taken from onto of the table that you see in back of my friend in the picture above.



Here is another pic from outside of the gazebo around the same time. Notice the water coming up from the river and through the other side of it. The water just sort of stops due to a steep hill.






One final picture. This is from the first park. It is right before the gap between the first set of pictures, where everything is relatively dry and the second set, where everything is flooded. This is the worst part of the storm coming in. Before it was just raining, this is what all of the flooding and the high winds came from.

Here are some more from today. This is evidence of how strong the winds were. The entire downtown area is just filled with downed trees. You can't even walk on the sidewalks, there are so many branches down and very large trees, which you will see below.

Here is a pic from outside of city hall. This was the old pine tree they used from a christmas tree. Curretnly it is crushing a lamp post and a street sign.



Here is one of the more amazing things that i have seen in my life. A massive tree in the graveyard was ripped out of the ground.





Here is another one. There are atleast four or five more trees this size that just fell over.

If we valued topsoil for what it was worth, we'd see lines for a hundred bucks a gallon. barrels would be a thing of the past.

From what i have heard, there was acutally a microburst during the storm yesterday on the other side of town. That would explain why an area in about a one mile radius has downed trees everywhere but everywhere around it, there is nothing out of place.

Hey jack! I was in that storm as well! I was in Rockford at the time. They declared us a disaster area. Massive flooding as well.

worst part is the people were recovering from the floods last year!

This is what happens when you build on wetlands!

The midwest is very flat country. (at one time it was a sea bed in an inland sea)
When the mississippi flooded several years ago, the states up north got hit hard, because the land is so flat.
It just spreads out forever like a bucket of water on the kitchen floor!

How flat is it?
I've heard it said that if yer dog runs away, you can see him going for 3 days!

I'm sorry to hear that.

I actually saw on the news today that west of where i live got hit a lot harder with rain. I know a few counties over got seven inches of rain yesterday, while those of us in the east got three inches or so. Also, the people down south are screwed, since all of the water we have is going to converge in their area. They say their rivers will not peak for at least another two days. My area is starting to dry out already, since it hasn't rained in about 27 hours now.

for some reasonDeKalb county (where NIU is) always seems to get the worst. They always get the hail and tornadoes. haha. But yeah, Rockford is just west. It was awful. I think it was about 8 inches of rain.