Oh, the sweet irony!

So it occurred to me this morning that we here in Missouri have been more affected by tropical systems this year than have the Tampa crew.

As I write this, the skies have begun to clear here in central Missouri, but as you can see, the St. Louis area is getting pummeled by Ike. In fact, at the onset of rain here, it was still technically a named tropical system.

So I couldn't find the statistics for Tampa, but I know that there are places here in the Springfield area that have gotten 15+ inches of rain in the past 8 or 9 days from Gustav and now Ike. We here at the lake haven't been that fortunate...I think our September total may just now be pushing 10 inches. Mom and dad...I assume that low spot in the yard is pretty much a pond by now.

This is of course much better than the alternative. When you live in Florida, it's not usually the gentle flooding of persistent rain that accompanies a tropical system. While it all got soaked, my lawn furniture was never in danger.