FARMVILLE — Rain clouds mimicked athletes on performance-enhancing drugs Thursday evening.

Rainfall records fell like denials of steroid use as the torrential rain established new high-water marks for the month of July and for a single day in the seventh month of the year.

WFLO, the area’s official National Weather Cooperative Observer, measured 4.17 inches for the period ending at 7 a.m. Friday morning. The old record was 4.03 inches of rain for a day in July, set on the 11^th back in 1975.

Likewise, 1975’s record-setting mark of 7.79 inches for the entire month of July was knocked off the gold medal podium with the 8.08 inches of rain that had fallen by Friday morning, not even halfway through the month.

The cloud-shredding rain also virtually equaled, in a single evening, a month’s worth of rainfall. The July average is 4.24 inches of rain.

For the entire month.

Thursday’s rain missed equaling that by the sheerest of margins—0.07 of an inch, the rain having a license to fill anything in its path.

The effect on the Appomattox River was to see the breadth of its current reach toward James River-like dimensions within the Town of Farmville’s corporate limits.

Riverside Park became part of the river, itself, on Friday as water lapped the stage where a First Friday’s band should have played but, for reasons Noah would understand, the event was canceled.

River Road also lived up to its name, Town officials closing the road because of flooding.

Buffalo Creek, meanwhile, was swollen wider than the Appomattox River’s normal proportions and those walking the Sarah Terry Trail at Wilck’s Lake when the rain stopped were excused for thinking they were walking atop a damn between two lakes.

Buffalo Creek’s water rose to within three feet of the trail.

Also a local record, no performance-enhancing chemicals needed.