Rain: Real Rain in May (May 13, 2020)

How nice it is to get real rain this late in the season—and encouraging considering how far behind we are this rain year. It's been raining for the past couple of days. We've had about an inch so far, and it's coming down quite respectably at the moment, so I suspect we'll get at least another quarter of an inch. I'll update the total soon. Before this latest storm, we were at 15.55 inches, so we are now approaching 17 inches. Better, but still well short of the historical annual average, which is somewhere around 36 inches.

[Update: We ended up getting 1.3 inches of new precipitation. That brings our total as of May 15 to 16.85 inches.]

Rain: New Rain is Welcome

In the past couple of days, we've had 1.00 inches of new precipitation, which is welcome, particularly this late the season, but that still leaves us only at 15.35 inches for the 2019-2020 rain year, only about half normal rainfall. A bad fire season on top of the coronavirus will be just what we need....

[Update: More rain on April 6 added 0.20 inches to our total, which now stands at 15.55 inches for the 2019-2020 rain year, still woefully low, but every little bit helps.]

Rain: Rain, Thunder, Lightning, and Hail

Rain on and off since last reporting, but mainly a good downpour today (March 22) with thunder and lightning and hail, even, has added 1.80 inches of precipitation to our total. That puts us at so far at 14.35 inches for the year--less than half of normal cumulative precipitation for this time of year, (about 30.9 inches for March 22). There is rain in the forecast again this coming week. The more the merrier. However, with coronavirus spreading and a wealth of fools apparently not taking things seriously in this country, a dry winter is not the first worry on my mind at the moment.  

Rain: Too Little Too Late?

Overnight this past Friday (March 7), we got a little bit of rain that lasted into the morning on Saturday. A deluge would have been nice, but we got only an additional 0.50 inches. That brings our total for the 2019-2020 rain year to 12.55 inches, which is better than nothing, but leaves us well below normal.  Half an inch won't go a very long way toward making up the deficit before the seasonal chances of rain evaporate completely, which could be any time now.

Rain: 1.8 Inches in the Past Few Days

Since last reporting, and as of the afternoon of January 22, 2020, we have had an additional 1.80 inches of rain this rain year at my location in Northeast Santa Rosa. That brings our total to 11.65 inches so far for the year. Normal for January 22 in Santa Rosa is a little over 19 inches, so we are quite a bit behind the usual rainfall level so far this year.

[Update: Subsequently have had another 0.6 inches of rain, bring the total to 12.05 inches a of the middle of February, but that leaves us well below normal and there is no rain in the forecast for the next ten days. Looks like another droughty, fire-prone year ahead.]

Rain: Another 1.4 Inches

Since last reporting, we've had rain on and off, but mostly on December 29. As of the morning of December 31, we've had 1.40 inches of new precipitation. That brings our total to 9.85 inches so far for the 2019-2020 rain year, which will go through the end of September 2020. That puts us about three inches behind normal rainfall for the end of the calendar year.

Rain: More and More on the Way (December 12, 2019)

Since last reporting, it's been raining on and off for several days and the forecast is mostly for rain in the next ten days or so, with a short break this coming weekend. As of the morning of December 12, there was another 3.30 inches in the rain gauge. That brings our total at my location so far this rain year to 7.20 inches, which is somewhat below normal, but we've caught up a great deal.

[Update: Rain on and off  since writing the above has added another 1.25 inches to our total (as of noon on December 24). That brings us to 8.45 inches.]

Rain: Finally some rain

We had our first rain of the 2019-2020 rain year today--the first real rain since back in April. The rain year runs from October to end-September, so the brief shower we had in September counts as part of last year's precipitation and it wasn't much to speak of anyway; I didn't even record it.

I had to be in all day today, so I haven't yet been able to look at the rain gauge to see how much rain we got, but I'm guessing the brief but intense shower with high winds we had at about 4:00PM probably brought us no more than a quarter inch. Still, it's a start, and there is more rain in the forecast next week.

[Update: I checked the rain gauge and was surprised to find a full 1.50 inches in it. We had rather more rain than I thought! It must have rained while I was sleeping.]

[Update: By Tuesday morning (December 3) we had had 3.90 inches of rain and it's still raining on and off....]