We had about 5/8″ rain, in addition to the inch we got Monday evening. Other areas of the county probably had more. (The fire team reported another inch and a half over the fire area Wednesday.) We were in Dial yesterday, and both the river and Noontootla Creek looked normal, which was a welcome sight. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the creeks as low as they were a week ago.
Since the rain, we’ve had a couple of beautiful clear, crisp days, with temperatures starting off around or just below the freeze and afternoon temperatures warming to around fifty.
Most of the leaves that are coming down anytime soon seem to have come down in the rainstorm, so it’s definitely time to rake leaves, if you haven’t already.
The fire seems to be winding down, with the team reporting 95% containment.
http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5078/
The smoke from the fire definitely hurt our tourism, and it definitely affected our fall selling season in the office. We probably had three weeks where it was a factor, and they were the prime weeks for real estate activity all year. If the weather stays nice, we’ll have a chance to recover some of that business before Christmas. But it it turns nasty, it’s “see you in the spring” for most of our customers.