Unquestionably wet

Rainstorms are normal, but the geography and the particular conditions of a near 30 degree lifestyle means that the there is a confluence of factors that contribute something still more.

The Gulf of Mexico is a large body of water, it is also uniquely ranges in extent with a continent and something like Mexico and Florida as shoulders and has a Gulf Stream feeding through it. The Ol' Loop Current forms in the Northern Caribbean and vortexes through the Straits of Yucatan and does something incredibly natural. It loops, hence the name, but not only cranes around it's axis of intent, but enrages itself with energy. This potential energy is something of crack for hurricane storm systems and provides many nights of vigilant stress for the human residents of all the shores of the Gulf. We all watch this potential with silent knowing, but there is nothing to do but watch.

As residents of these climes we are near on experts in storm forecasting and prediction modeling. Human weather computers of our own hard borne experience. Not many of us we so shocked or surprised at the overnight blooming of Katrina, but we all silently worried that the Loop current would feed that monster and make for a new item the next morning after Katrina escaped Florida land mass and approached the Eastern edge of the Loop current of the Gulf Stream.

The next morning weather satellite reports showed a monster the whole extent of the Gulf itself. Many were surprised at the scale, most were confirming their worst predictions and calculus from the evening before. Terrible sight that morning on the TV.

So, there is a regular, less scary, event of weather that comes from clash of warm and humid from the Gulf and the cool and dry from the North. This time it is the Jet Stream that is triggering the host system, but it is the moisture and the geography coincidence that is the real matter of note. When times allow and systems prevail with clashing warm to rapidly cool the orographic lift of warm Gulf air masses, this all allows for some torrential rain events. Adding to this effect is the latitude of 30 degrees which further contributes falling warm air mass that was originally lifted by heat from the Sun near and around the equator of the Earth. So, again there is a confluence of these many elements and the confluence of geography as measured by 30 degrees of latitude North. 

...and what else?

So, Kisatchie is a bit further north than exactly 30 degrees, such as New Orleans rests, but this ever so slight more northerly position of land positions a near high point of serious possibles that only Louisiana and Kisatchie could prepare. 

For an example, understand that Fall will bring changing weather and seasons. The progressive rotational and tilt of the Earth processional axis drift is also at work, but there is also a time for all of this... that time comes in the Fall. Louisiana is not much for a "Fall" of photogenic calendar expectations, there is little chemical change in the trees, little protest by the denizens for the cooler temps and calmer days, but there is a deception with all of this tranquility. It is wrecked upon a clash of Titan air masses that Kisatchie all too well knows.

The scene is as so: weather forecast radio reports and phone apps alike predict a frontal airmass approaching from the west to WNW, perhaps sometimes in the near morning or later morning, A dawn breaks as normally as expected and the birds report all is well. The heavy air is just laden with moisture and it is a full compression of pressure to also enjoy over a cup of coffee. Even the ripples in the cup explain the barometer is hard and that something is about to crack.

That same pressure builds and forms and maybe slides to the east or holds stickily, like the moisture adds friction to the air and does not let it go from its place. But the front does come. It cannot be stalled or denied. It must come, driven by the momentum and whip effect of the Jet Stream and a loop formed stretching South to North, sometimes straight North like a line of hard truth that everyone will enjoy. Sometimes the fronts are fast and line up like soldiers and run over the lands from North to South. You sometimes see a strong picket line from horizon to horizon as the wall forces and builds and grows dark, dark as pitch.

The rest of the sky changes to ash, that cold color that denies the colors of your quest and happiness is sheepishly pulled back to some safe hole somewhere, maybe for awhile, maybe just because the colors are scared.

Oh, it's comin'. Sure that it's coming.

Drops fall with warning, "fat rain" we call it. This first drops are the choice ones that if you catch on a tongue, count yourself lucky and blessed, that smack the dirt full and pop sometimes hollow sound and sometimes cracking sound. Pine floor duff makes still another sound with fat rain, the kind of sound that is hard to explain, the kind of sound you hear in Kisatchie when the storms are going to be be big. 

There have been some events that came all at once. a wall of sound marching from over there, up yonder that just rolls in and crushes. Or sometimes you are enveloped and all around consumed in rain that just comes, once it happens, no real warning, just dumps all at once. In any event, you are going to get a lesson, your are going to clearly find out what's is all the matter about rain and storms. 

Retreat, scramble if you have to. Console yourself in the rain as it comes... it's a good thing mostly, but will teach lessons still, especially if you have ignored the screaming warnings of the winds, that's when it get's bad.

Downpours, I mean gully washers and "car washes" are one thing, but violent storms in Kisatchie have a special temper. This geography is what does it. The combinations of pressure, moisture, latent heat and potential energy from orographic lifting combine and dole out shellacking. What can be your only friend?

A humble tarp.

Hydrostatic head ratings on outdoor fabrics are a fine thing. I welcome all that sort of tech, I think it's all great. The mountaineering design tested on the slopes of Everest tent is just fine, sure that's all fine. The calm assurance that the gear is tested, proofed, tried and even warranted is just all fine. The Kisatchie still has a say... we'll see... Things have only started.

As it would have to be, the coming stretch of fabric has done well so far. The beaded rivulets and runs of small pools all spell out a fine credit card purchase. I like to see those runs and hear the hard "pop" on a rain fly, tells me that the tent is up to the task. OK, the beginning of the beginning is only a one thing, let's check in after a while.

Again, the rain is there, the time has passed and the resting nimrod is well content and sealed against the efforts of Nature to do some harm. But what is this??? A crack in the technology? A Seam letting go? a Drip where there was only a dry scape of taught high tech something fabric? 

These kinds of details are what you burn into the memory as Kisatchie and the storm progresses. You take note that the maintenance will have to be there, there and there. Or that the camp site is not exactly so well draining or sloping so much any more. That one lonely tree up there, that one that was bare to the wood, the lonely pine not like all the others... Oh, that tree. Yes, see how its sways in the winds. This all observes through s slight unzipped door to the storm that allows some surveillance and more confirmation that lessons are being doled out.

Before the storm you might notice other camps about. Those colorful scapes of geodesic and angular soft form of promise and marketplace didactic assurance. The stretched covers all look so fine. And then there are the other campers, and camps. They have a singular similar color variant around an industrial blue or silver, usually half inch lines staked with rebar and all this observed from the passing roads at 20 miles an hour, all of these details plainly apparent, if you know what they speak of - experience.

So, the storm progresses. Seems to carry on far longer that expected, just why the rain hasn't all fallen yet, why does it have to be so hard?

Kisatchie will release and relinquish only when it is actually spent and not a moment before.

On the occasions that the storms pass at night a strange phenomena might occur. There is an instance when the storm passed on a waxing quarter moon night. I didn't know the moon phase until after the storm passed and the calm returned to the forest. What also came??? The insects all awoke, the heavy primordial wet was thick enough to build a ground fog and hold as an eerie sign post to this experience past storm, not often the insects and peepers all awake and dance at once in November. 

Other phenomena are around matters of materials science and basic knowledges of how well market 10'x10' canopies fare in such Kisatchie shellacking events, usually not. And usually, there are many changes in perspective all collectively uploading to the common Kisatchie unconscious, as many that have no tarps wish only for such a humble thing. 

Woe to the wise that forget their tarps in Kisatchie.

FC

POST PUBLISH EDIT

 18 Nov 2024 

  On this day I was involved in training for new software, but we all were monitoring the coming weather. Safe and dry we all were... I also, was thankful to be watching this and not experiencing it all from a Kisatchie perspective. 

Woe to the Kisatchie nimrod that ignores the merits of a simple tarp.