Overflowing mudpuddles create tricklets of refreshing waters. There’s an urge to pull off one’s shoes and wade barefooted. It’s raining cats and dogs!

The unusual is news and infrequent rain is a newsmaker. Nectar from the sky is a strange sight indeed during a severely dry late spring and early summer.

An approaching cold front interacting with Gulf moisture has brought the first really widespread soaking rainfall this summer. It broke a heat wave and dented a lingering drought. People were praying for rain and their prayers have been answered.

From about noon Tuesday until midday Wednesday, one heavy shower followed another across thirsty Pulaski County. It rained off and on for 24 hours but there has been little runoff because sun-baked ground absorbed water like a sponge.

The overnight showers debunk an old saying that it never rains at night in July. Deep into the darkness, soft raindrops pampered the Earth from ominous clouds, pregnant with moisture. Daylight came and it continued to rain.

Mother Nature gave her bounty without fanfare. There were few embedded thunderstorms and only a scant flickering of lightning. Just rain; generous, delicious, splattering drops of wet.

Nobody seemed to mind the downpours. No one was saying, “Rain, rain go away, come again another day.” Getting wet was an adventure.

“Everybody got at least an inch. Most places got two inches and a swath five miles on either side of Ky. 80 and the Cumberland Parkway got three inches,” said Tom Johnstone, meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Jackson. He said the heaviest rain has been in the southern two-thirds of the county.

The rain, as beneficial as it is, won’t end the drought,” said Johnstone. “It has just put a small dent in it.” Pulaski County and much of eastern Kentucky have been in a severe drought for several weeks, according to the Palmer Drought Severity Index.

“Drought is a long-term situation,” Johnstone explained. “Drought is the measure of groundwater ... drought doesn’t begin quickly and it doesn’t end quickly.”

Some places got more rain than the National Weather Service radar indicated.

Frank Jones said his father, also Frank Jones, had 4 inches of water in his gauge at Bronston. That included rain that fell Tuesday, Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning.

“There was water standing down in the field ... and that hasn’t happened in a long time,” the younger Jones commented.

Not quite as much rain fell in the western part of the county, but folks out that way got a good soaker.

“I had 2 1/2 inches in my gauge this morning,” reported Johnny Mounce, clerk at Nancy Supply. Mounce lives on Warner Road. Unconfirmed reports from the Ingle community in far-southwestern Pulaski County indicated as much as 2 1/2 inches of rain.

Mark Haney, co-owner of Haney’s Appledale Farm on Ky. 80 west of Nancy, estimated more than 4 inches of rain at his place.

“We had three hard showers yesterday (Tuesday) ... I’d say we got an inch and a half ... and my guess is we got more than 3 inches overnight,” Haney said at midmorning Wednesday.

“This rain is really going to help farmers,” said Haney. “The biggest help will be to cattle farmers. Pastures were so dry ... a lot of farmers had begun to feed cattle ... we (Mark and brother Don) had begun to feed.

“We had a short crop of hay to begin with because of the April freeze and drought,” said Haney. “With this rain, there may be some fall hay. That’s what farmers are hoping for.”

Haney said the rain will help the corn crop.

“Most corn has not yet tasseled ... some has, but most hasn’t,” he noted. “Tobacco is basically a dry weather crop ... and this rain will really help.”

As the National Weather Service radar indicated, lesser amounts of rain fell in the northern part of the county.

“We’ve had about an inch and a half,” said Eubank Mayor Frey Todd.

“It’s raining right now,” he added, speaking with a reporter shortly after 9 o’clock yesterday morning.

Rainfall in Pulaski County doesn’t affect the level of Lake Cumberland as much as heavy rain in the Cumberland Basin in eastern Kentucky, according to Bernie Kearns, acting resource manager for Lake Cumberland. Kearns said early yesterday that he had not received a report about the amount of rainfall in the eastern part of the state.

“We may get a rise (in the lake level) but they can bring it down pretty quickly ... a foot a day,” said Kearns. The lake is being kept about 40 feet below normal to ease pressure on Wolf Creek Dam, undergoing a massive rehabilitation to stop a serious seepage problem.

The heavy rains in Pulaski County Tuesday through early Wednesday hadn’t significantly changed the lake level. It was 680.34 feet above sea level at 6 a.m. Tuesday and 680.41 at 6 a.m. Wednesday, a rise of .07 of a foot.