Storm in Chianti

 The Rainbomb
 

The day before we came back to Le Ripe there was an extremely violent storm which dumped massive quantities of water in only about 30 minutes. In Firenze they called it a ‘rainbomb’....Our local restaurant was flooded out momentarily and other houses were flooded from the hill behind. Le Ripe buildings and surrounds were fine, but our road and drive suffered...

This is the first stream upon entering our drive: see how the road has eroded dramatically on the right: the pipe was blocked by very heavy stones washed down by the torrential rain; all the water was flowing over the drive, like a river.

The second photo is of the road below our neighbours' cypresses: there is now a deep furrow and a good part of the road material has been washed down the hill or to the side...The metal channels we had put in would have been insufficient in such a downpour although most of them were clear.

Such rainstorms are rare but they happen...and maybe they will be more frequent thanks to climate change etc...