Caught in storm on Pickwick
Iwas fishing at Pickwick Tuesday afternoon. When I left the house therewas a 30% chance of rain. I was on Bear Creek between Tishomingo CountyMS and Colbert County AL. Around 5 PM a storm moved in and I found myselfjuuuuussst on the edge of it. Luckily it slid south-east and I missed theworst of it, and I got back to fishing. Below is a picture of the firststorm that I dodged.There is a link to a videoof the conditions at the bottom of the page.
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8754/...11e7f840_b.jpgbear creek 5 pic 1 by scarfam, on Flickr
Istill had time to kill so I got back to fishing. A short time later Ilooked north and saw that the mouth of Bear Creek (where it meets the TN River)was totally socked in. I could tell from 4 miles away that there wassignificant rain in that area. The problem was that I had to go throughthat area to get to my truck. I started to slowly make my way north,hoping that by the time I got done fishing, that area would be clear. Nothing could be further from the truth. The storm intensified and beganthrowing off huge...HUGE amounts of lightning. I was in a metal fishingboat, filled with graphite rods...I did not want to be the only thing in themiddle of the lake in that type of lightning storm.
I called my father in law for a radar update. He said that if I gave itabout 30 minutes the worst should be past me. I took shelter in a coveand waited 30 minutes, which put the time right at dark, then called foranother update. There was still a lot of lightning in the area so Iwasn't terribly hopeful. He said that based solely on radar, it lookedlike the ONLY opening I would have for the next several hours was rightthen. He said that I might be able to make it between storms, but to usecaution as the situation on the ground might not be what it looks from theradar.
Armed with that info I decided to make a run for it. It was dark, therewas a small break in the storms in my way, and I had a 6 mile run to get to mytruck. I motored out of the protected cove in which I had taken shelterearlier, and made for the main channel. I don't think I made it a quarterof a mile before I realized it was a death sentence to continue. Hugelightning was everywhere. Some of it lit up massive sections of the sky,it danced back and forth inside huge storm clouds, it slammed down to earth ingiant white bolts...it was horrendous. Every time a big bolt flashed Ilost my night vision and took a second or two to get it back. After a fewhundred yards of this I realized that while there may be a break in therain...there was no break in the lightning...there was no way I was going tochance running through this weather to try to make it to the truck. Aboutthe time I'm thinking this, another bolt flashed and blinded me, I'm doingabout 20 MPH and when my vision comes back it's filled with something big rightin front of me! I was about to hit something. It was birds...a hugeflock of white birds had lifted off the water right in front of me. Holycrap! I couldn't believe it.
After being blinded by lightning half a dozen times, giving a flock of birdsthe scare of their/my life, I turned the boat around and started back for thecove I was in earlier. At that point I saw what looked like lightninghitting the water back at the cove. The entire shoreline flashed withwhat looked like blue-electricity in the water. It was wicked...like evillooking. I was totally disoriented at this point. It's dark, thewind is howling, rain is spitting, the lightning has me surrounded and nowappears to be hitting the water over and over in the one place I know I canseek shelter.
It took a few seconds to figure our what was going on. The lightningwasn't hitting the water...when the lightning behind me flashed, the intenselight bounced off the rock walls that line Bear Creek and created a visual thatlooks like a long line of electricity in the water. It was surreal. After another minute or so I was motoring back into the cove. I was onhigh alert at this point, it was extremely dangerous and every decision neededto be the right one. Just then my iPhone unexpectedly adds to the chaoswith an incredible squawking...BAAAHHH...BAHHHH....BAAAHHHH!!! Flashflood and severe weather alerts are now joining the chorus of lightning, wind,rain, and thunder. It...was...chaos.
Once I got back into the cove I had good shelter from the wind and there was norain in that location. I decided I'd just pitch my tent and spend thenight right there. It would dangerous to camp here, but to try to make itto the truck in this weather would be suicidal. I got a nice campfiregoing, set up my tent, and then looked north at the lightning show. I wasat the base of a huge ridge that would keep the wind off me, and I pulled theboat up on the protected side of the gravel bar that forms the mouth of thecove...no matter what the wind did...it couldn't affect me. The fire wasnow roaring, and I started making dinner with my Jetboil stove. Iwas bent down over the stove when I heard it. It sounded like thefabric of the universe itself was ripping open right over me. There was asizzling, crackling, ripping sound that ended with a crash of thunder ofunbelievable volume...if God has a shotgun...that's what it would soundlike. I about jumped out of my rain jacket.
I thought the storm was going to stay to my north on the main river, but it hadshifted a bit south. Rain now began to hit the campfire. No bigdeal, it's a good fire, and a light rain, I'll just get in the tent until itpasses. Then the rain got heavier. The fire went out. Thetent began to leak. The boat was filling with water. And I wasstuck in the most God Awful lightning storm I have ever experienced. Ichecked my iPhone for the radar update and I thought it was broken because Ijust couldn't believe what I was seeing. I thought there was one smallstorm to deal with. My phone was showing a huge line of red and yellowwith flood warning boxes and severe thunderstorm boxes laid over theradar. All of it was lined up to slowly crawl right over the top of myposition.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7603/...3443df91_b.jpgradar by scarfam, on Flickr
I was now officially stuck. All I could do was hunker down and hope I didn't get hit. This morning Ifound out that the piece of ground right across the creek from me got pummeledwith hail, as did a few places just north of me (1 to 1.75 inch hail)...thehail missed me by maybe half a mile. Last night was the loudest andunfortunately, the most dangerous night I've ever spent outdoors. Had Ihad a way to avoid it I would have, but I got caught off guard and had to makethe best of a bad set of cards.
Adding to the fun was that I don't have an automatic bilge pump on myboat. So every now and again I had to go out in the storm and turn on thepump. The last thing I did before trying to get some sleep was to set analarm to go off every hour all night so I could get up and go run the bilgepump.
Sometime after midnight the storm let up enough that I was able to pack up andhead to the truck. When I finally got underway it was reallypeaceful. The water was smooth, the air was cool, and I watched the stormraging over the ridges to my south. I knew exactly what those folks weredealing with because I had just been pounded by it for hours. Interestingly, way out there in the middle of the channel...the air was tingedheavily with the scent of pine. I spend a ton of time on that river andI've never experienced that before. My only guess is that so many treesgot hit by lightning, or broken by the wind that the whole county smelled likepine-sol.
For almost 4 hours there was not a 5 second time frame that didn't havelightning. It was striking close and loud, every three to five secondsfor hours on end. The thunder boomed longer than anything I've everheard, many of the booms rolled on for longer than 30 seconds.
That marks the first time in my life I was happy to get off the lake. Icrawled into bed at home around 3:30 AM.
The video below is from the initial (and very unsuccessful) run Itried to make back to the truck. These were the best conditions Ihad for most of the night. After I shot this it got so bad i had do takeshelter in the tent for about 4 hours. The video was shot with aniPhone…at night…so maximize your screen size…and it helps if you watch it in alow light environment…then it’s almost like being there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IggKn6E3E0
