The wet weather arrived and conquered

from Morguefile/thesuccess

After participating in my second half marathon (and eighth race overall in the past 16 months) on Thanksgiving Day, I was thankful that the wet weather was holding off on that day, but knowing that we needed the wet stuff.

Me and millions were even more thankful that we finally received some rain during the last few days  of November! As the North Georgia wildfires were burning while getting some containment, the weather gurus were filled with anticipation of the impending moisture. It was party time in one sense as we put a slight dent in our drought. The downside of the recent system featured four tornadoes on November 30. At least three of those twisters were EF1 tornadoes leaving damage, but thankfully no one was hurt. In fact, Cobb County's tornado siren got a workout.

The tornadoes' aftermath left us with true December temperatures with lows in the 30s - which is something that we haven't experienced in a long time. Didn't we just have some days in the 70s? It's another roller coaster which wreaks havoc on our landscapes as well as our bodies. It's hard to believe that we pushed through with what I feel was one of the worst summers that I experienced here in the Southeast and I have been here long enough to almost label myself a native.

With a bit more rain on its way, are we finally in a wet pattern? It doesn't sound like the climatologists and meteorologists can make that overall prediction, but we can only hope  -- and for some of us I suppose the praying for rain ought to continue. I always include the caveat on that one: be careful what you pray for these days - after all, we don't need a massive deluge like we experienced in autumn 2009 which featured a near-constant monsoon.

Even though we will experience a bit more rain in the coming days of early December 2016, as of this writing, the Peach State will continue to be in a drought. If we don't break the dry pattern over winter and spring, I can only imagine that more strict water conservation measure will have to be put in place.

Aside from the tornado activity that was part of the late November rain systems, we were left with oil-slicked roads which caused several accidents. Well, one cannot blame the accidents only on the oil, let's chalk up many of those mishaps on inexperienced rain driving. Let's face it, it's tough for many in the Atlanta metro area to deal with rain if it hasn't happened in over 40 days.

While there is quite a mess left over from the area tornadoes, one cannot forget the massive damage that was done to our neighbors to the west in Alabama and fires in the Gatlinburg, Tennessee area.

Getting back to Thanksgiving, it was wonderful to get out there for the 13-plus-mile run with thousands of others on that brisk morning. There's a true sense of comradeship as we hit the pavement. Receiving the swag was quite rewarding as well as the meal I had afterward with Cami.