Lesson Learned: 'The Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise'

Upon my word, after our July 21 summer flash flood, I can understand why the idiom that I have heard all my life applies to us in the central Appalachian Mountains. Truly our torrential rain with the creeks rising in Lewis and Upshur Counties surely put us on edge. Yes, we have been subject to occasional and unpredictably extreme rainfall in Appalachia for eons. Our first West Virginia State Park honors Blackwater Falls. This is where Joyce and I honeymooned, on the banks of this honored river after our vintage West Virginia wedding. Mountaineers celebrate the 'Golden Trout' and our great fishing streams. 'Gone Fishing' is recognized as a legitimate claim to close up the work place and head for 'Almost Heaven' fishing holes. West Virginia has 85% of our hills covered with the greatest hardwood forest on Planet Earth growing in our rain forests of more than 75 inches of rain each year. Pickens, at the headwaters of the Buckhannon River, is known as 'The Haven in the Hardwoods' where more than 180 inches of snow falls annually, melting into spring torrents. Yet, July 21 was a might different! Analyze the saying: 'The Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise.' It is a shout out for moderation as a prayer to Almighty God. We had 5 to 7 inches of rain fall in a few hours, resulting in catastrophic flash flooding. The creeks did surely rise! As a lifelong resident of Buckhannon, I was very surprised and shaken by the intensity of up to 4.5 inches of torrential rain falling in just 37 minutes around our home in downtown Buckhannon. The river levels of the Buckhannon River near Sand Run crested at a record-shattering 10.63 feet. Destruction stories continue to emerge from out in rural Upshur County, where valor of water rescues, submerged vehicles, and severe damage to homes and local infrastructure amaze and dismay me. Weather forecasters have been watching a recent phenomenon following the warming of the air, giving clouds an increased capacity to hold water. The specific meteorological term for the mechanism operating inside warm, water-laden clouds that leads to heavy rain is the warm rain process, driven fundamentally by collision-coalescence. When this intense downpour happens suddenly and violently over a small area, it is classified as a cloudburst. The 'perfect storm' for Buckhannon came about from orographic lifting of these warm clouds to trigger cloudbursts in our mountainous region. I am just one among many who will become nervous with every summer thunderstorm. I have learned the lesson handed down by our mountaineer old timers who have told us upon parting with plans to gather again when 'The Good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise.'