Torrential rain spells disaster

Around 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, July 21, a hailstorm moved into the Shell area, marking the beginning of what would soon become a natural disaster.
The Bighorn Basin is considered a semi-arid desert, which receives around 6-10 inches of rain on average each year, has high summer temperatures, cold winters and winds that can reach hurricane strength. In semi-arid climates, the soil is unable to absorb large amounts of moisture in short periods of time, which is exactly what happened on Saturday when three inches of rain flooded Trapper Creek and left the area in disarray.
“This is an agricultural disaster,” Dineen Mueller, a local farmer, said. “It started with nearly two-and-a-half inches of rain within 45-minutes. The downpour would alternate between hail and rain, then some more rain, before returning to hail again, and so on and so forth.