A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

Thursday, we got a steady rainfall that brought 1.2" of rain over a six hour period. Friday... well, Friday we got a monsoon that delivered 2" of rain in 30 minutes, followed by another inch of rain in a second hour-long storm later that same evening. The good news is that we got 4.2" of rain in two days. The bad news is that we got so much of it in a torrent, which means that a significant amount just ran off. Even so, it's going to be of some benefit... and it reduces our deficit to a mere 10" for the year.

If you look at the bigger picture, though, it's very different: for the past five years, we're still 33" above normal for rainfall here. If only the Southeast had put more resources into water management and long-term reservoir retention, we'd have no problem at all...