OK, God, Enough is Enough

It has been raining since Friday. The Charlottesville area is reporting .9" in the last 24 hours. I haven't seen a definite figure for the amount of precipitation for the last 120 hours, but I'm guessing we have had about 3". The Rivanna flood gage is reading 6.24' right now and climbing with a rise of over 3' just yesterday! The predicted rise is to 10.5' before tomorrow. Uh-oh. The river doesn't reach "action stage" until 15', but a prediction of 10.5' leaves a narrow margin for error. And there is more rain to come.

The James River seems to be taking this rain in strides and doesn't really care that it's raining. A flood gage in Cartersville is reading 3.51' with a predicted rise to 6.8'. Not a big deal since that area reaches action stage at 16' and doesn't flood until 20'. But still, a little too much water for a couple of amateur kayakers loaded down with camping gear.

Further downstream and closer to Richmond, the James is showing 5.46'. That is down from 8.6' on Sunday with a prediction to rise back up to 8.2' on Thursday. The James River Locks gage is reading -.24'. That is down from 3.74' Saturday afternoon. NOAA is avoiding predicting the rise of this one like a hooker avoids panties, and I don't blame them. The graph looks more like a stereo equalizer playing Metallica at full blast than a calm river lazily passing through the capital city. By the way, permits are required to be on the river at 9'. That's how bad it gets before action stage.

What's this mean for C.R.A.K.? (Charlottesville to Richmond Abetted by Kayaks) A tropical depression is on a strong dose of Zoloft and when it clears its head, TD 6 will become tropical storm Florence. Flo will most likely reach hurricane status and travel west-the same path as Ernesto, which is the cause of my current state of water animosity. By the time the rivers recuperate from this bender, Flo will come in and disrupt the river/kayaker harmony with her sweet nectar of life. This will occur on the weekend before we leave. That sucks.

Why is it that there has not been a storm all season and now that I plan on playing in the water, we get two hurricanes in a month?



Ummm, fair winds and following seas??