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I was ready to lay the blame for the drought on Mrs. Madville Times: she bought a set of rain gauges last month -- one for the deck, one for the garden -- and it hadn't rained since. All we had in the rain gauge was a hundredth of an inch of dead bugs. Buying a new rain gauge must be the karmic reverse of washing the car.
But the sensible and skeptical Madville Times readers know better. That's just July and bad luck. After the disappointment of Wednesday night's clouds, which skirted fair Madison and gave us no more than a couple rumbles of thunder and three raindrops (we counted), we eyed the days' steady cloud cover with wary optimism. Then we saw the looming blob of green and blue on the radar lurching our way. And now, those clouds have let loose. We came home from the Lake County Dems meeting and supper at Dairy Queen (just six days until Miracle Treat Day!) to find the first rain in our gauge, 0.11 inch. Subtract the bugs, and that's a nice tenth of an inch of gentle rain.
The wind has picked up a bit, and we're getting a second dose. Of course, it could rain all night and still not fill those big inch-wide cracks in the dirt. Keep it coming....
Hide Fido (by Andy Horowitz)
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I coined Noem as the ‘Palin of South Dakota’ when she ran for the state
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11 hours ago
We call these "Million Dollar Rains" because of the financial benefits for farmers and business people on mainstreet. This one might be W-A-Y more than a million. Moisture equals Optimism for fall harvest and cash flow. Should bring the lawns back to life too, and perhaps we'll get more in the days to come. Trust in the Lord. We have no other choice beside cloud seeding and we saw what happened doing that in Rapid City decades ago.
ReplyDeleteThat's more like it -- I wake this morning to find another half inch of rain (and no extra bugs) in the gauge, thanks to the big windy soaker that woke me up around four a.m. Our total thus far: 0.6 inches (14 millimeters for our friends in Canada... 14.5 in Newfoundland.)
ReplyDelete"Million-Daollar Rains" -- that term got me thinking: is it possible to rigorously quantify the economic value of rainfall? I can imagine a two-tailed curve: there must be some optimal amount of rainfall (plus distribution over time -- if it all falls in May, we'll be up a dry creek in August) for economic production. Get more or less rain than that optimum, and the economy doesn't perform as well. One 2005 paper analyzes the impact of declining rainfall of Africa's economy (less rainfall means Africa has lagged the rest of the developing world by 9% to 23% in per capita GDP). That study could be relevant to South Dakota, in that both Africa and South Dakota rely heavily on agriculture and hydroelectric power. (I'm just angling to get these professors to come to South Dakota to do a comparative study and spend their money downtown.)
ReplyDeleteBut most folks won't require that sort of analysis to know last night's rain was a good thing. Mmm... happy tomatoes in the garden!
Revise that Lake Herman rainfall figure upward: Both our garden rain gauge and the neighbors measured 0.95 inches of rain from Friday and Saturday's rain. Our deck gauge appears to have been sheltered from the southeasterly breeze and thus may ahve missed some of the rain. We are happy to choose the higher figure for our rain estimate! We are also moving the deck gauge to a slightly less sheltered position at the top of a lower pole.
ReplyDelete