Saturday, March 11, 2006

It's raining!

It's Saturday morning around a quarter to five, and it's RAINING a bit outside.



It hasn't rained here since October, 143 days or so ago.

As I understand it, to differentiate rain from verga (verga is rain that evaporates before it hits the ground), rain has to leave one hundredth of an inch of water in the rain gauge at Sky Harbor International Airport, about four miles from our house.

It's only a light sprinkle coming down, barely enough to get you wet in a one block walk. Still, I'd bet the "10 mil at Sky Harbor" definition of rain has been met today, ending the long "no-rain day" spell. (I guess it's worthwhile to distinguish between "successive no-rain days" and "dry spells" or droughts. The dry spell or drought will not end with 10 mils of water in a raingauge.)

Rain coming tonight, snow falling in mountains:
The Valley's official weather station at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport has reported no rain since Oct. 18. On Thursday, the Valley also matched the second-longest period without measurable rain, which describes a few drops but not enough to measure. The longest period without measurable rain is a 160 days.
I don't follow the last sentence. How can we be setting records every day now if the record is still 15 days away? That 160-day statistic must apply to a different region.

If it's any consolation, the weather has been fantastic.

1 comment:

jj mollo said...

In Philadelphia we had about an inch of rain just yesterday AM, plus one huge thunderbolt that made the lights flicker. It was a test for my new gutters and downspouts, which didn't perform too well.