The effects of hurricane Dennis made themselves known just about sunrise this morning. There had been some rain and thunderstorms during the night, but they were just the precursors of the real thing. I stood outside the guardshack this morning and watched as the front edge of the rain bands moved in. Fast.
There is nothing quite like the look of a hurricane's weather. The clouds look different, and move different. Once you've seen a few, you know it when you see it. As the storm approached the temperature suddenly dropped about 10 degrees in a matter of seconds, the wind picked up suddenly, and the rain came. Lots of rain. Buckets full of rain.
I closed up the guardshack as the wind was driving the rain sideways through it and was soaking everything as it was tearing the same everything to shreds. The bug barrier curtains beat against the doors and it sounded as if they would beat them down.
Once the initial edge passed by in it's arcing path, things quieted down some. The wind, while still blowing, was less fierce, and the rain slowed to a simple downpour and remained that way until I got home.
We are now being visited by more strong winds and heavy rain, still just the outer edges of the storm of course. The real stuff will be here later. Luckily it looks like the main part of the storm is going to remain a couple of hundred miles offshore as it passes by us but we will still experience some pretty heavy tropical storm conditions.
Right now we are under a tropical storm warning, tornado watches and some warnings, and a flood warning. What a wonderful day.