The heading is a translation of the French expression Il pleut à boire debout. In English we might say that it’s raining cats and dogs, which is more colourful but less realistic.

Saturday evening we were having a late supper, watching the clouds and listening to the approaching thunder, when the water taps in the skies opened wide. Water poured down, mixed with pea-size hail. I’m sure I could have gone outside, opened my mouth and quenched my thirst with the ice cold water pouring from the sky. I would also have gotten thoroughly drenched on the outside. There was no wind, the rain and hail fell straight down, doing no damage except to remove some petals from the flowers in my wife’s flower pots. But at one point the ground was white.

I checked the Weather Network on my cell phone and it showed a severe thunderstorm warning, saying that at 6:45pm Environment Canada had detected a severe thunderstorm located over Swanson and moving north at the rate of 25 km/hour. We already knew that; our home is one mile cross country from Swanson.

That first downburst brought 50mm/2 inches of rain. Lighter rain continued until Sunday noon, for a total of 63mm/2½ inches. Coupled with the earlier rains we received this leaves water lying in many places, ditches, sloughs and low spots in fields.

This is climate change in Saskatchewan. For as long as I can remember (and I am 82) we have had alternating cycles of drought and of abundant rains. We just don’t have a Joseph to tell us beforehand when one cycle will end and another begin.