Stop Letting Soil Tests Fool You About Drainage Reality

I bought my twelve acres partly based on a glowing soil test. Sandy loam, decent organic matter, good pH. I thought I'd done my homework. What I hadn't done was visit the property after a significant rain event. That first wet spring taught me that a soil test tells you almost nothing about how water actually moves across a landscape under pressure. I had two low spots that turned into standing ponds for weeks. Lost an entire bed of transplants and had to completely rethink my field layout. Now I tell every first-generation buyer I meet: visit a property at least once in wet conditions before closing. Drive every corner. Walk the drainage swales. Ask neighbors where water pools. No amount of lab analysis substitutes for watching what gravity does with that land when the sky opens up. The soil composition was accurate. The drainage behavior was a complete surprise. Those are two entirely different things. Anyone else buy based on soil data and get blindsided by hydrology that no report captured?