After the Rain

After recent rains, the runoff has created dramatic flooding in the Pigeon Swamp Park.
Water was flowing an swift streams carving out passages through the farmland into the trees and lowland areas. This same water connects to the swamps wetlands and vernal ponds.


A yardstick marks the depth of water at over nine inches flowing in a stream from field to forest after thunderstorms some 12 hours earlier.

Without high boots, I could not cross this area to check on other spots.

The roadway along the power lines was completely under at water even deeper than this, but water this deep blocked my way so I couldn't get in there either.






In the misty morning the cornfield looks like a marshland.

This is the the same field pictured in the lower blog post, taken from near the same spot.
It's pretty clear how high the water is at this point. Again, without high boots, I could not cross over to the other side.






I was shocked at how deep the water was this morning, just about 12 hours after the rainstorms of the evening before. Since I could not access some of the area on foot, I did not measure the depth of the water in other areas.

During the winter thaw, water in these areas was nearly three feet deep.

What is significant is that a good portion of this land was tillable farmland before construction of the drainage ditches east of the Turnpike.