Thursday, June 19, 2014
31 hours of rain
Bleah. After a long spell of sheer perfection, Nature reverted to the mean meanly:
That's 31 hours of unbroken rain. Total was 1.2 inches. Certainly a once-a-year event. Last year's equivalent was in August.
Now it looks like we're going to step-function into hot summer, completing a year of steppy seasons.
An observation about this steppy year: Rain has been blowing from the east much more often. I notice this because my bedroom window faces NE, and rain has been waking me up more often this year. In most previous years, night rain didn't wake me unless it was seriously hefty, because it was banging on the other (SW) side of the house. I remember only one earlier year, maybe around '95, when rain consistently blew from the east.
Years with this pattern may correspond to a more continental influence on Spokane's weather. Most of the time we get our precip via the jet stream from the Pacific, which is a SW flow. Yesterday's storm was purely continental, with rain constantly wrapping from NE:
Metrology-type sidenote: We got a typical month's worth of rain in one day. That phrase, often used in media reports of big rains, makes it sound like a Biblical flood or deluge. Nope. Streets with blocked gutters ponded for a while, and a few yards ponded because homeowners stupidly let their sprinkler systems run during the rain. Aside from that, no flood, no problems. The soil happily absorbed the inch. This is a situation where the absolute matters more than the proportion. If your area typically gets 72 inches of rain in a year, then a month's worth in one day could be serious.
That's 31 hours of unbroken rain. Total was 1.2 inches. Certainly a once-a-year event. Last year's equivalent was in August.
Now it looks like we're going to step-function into hot summer, completing a year of steppy seasons.
An observation about this steppy year: Rain has been blowing from the east much more often. I notice this because my bedroom window faces NE, and rain has been waking me up more often this year. In most previous years, night rain didn't wake me unless it was seriously hefty, because it was banging on the other (SW) side of the house. I remember only one earlier year, maybe around '95, when rain consistently blew from the east.
Years with this pattern may correspond to a more continental influence on Spokane's weather. Most of the time we get our precip via the jet stream from the Pacific, which is a SW flow. Yesterday's storm was purely continental, with rain constantly wrapping from NE:
Metrology-type sidenote: We got a typical month's worth of rain in one day. That phrase, often used in media reports of big rains, makes it sound like a Biblical flood or deluge. Nope. Streets with blocked gutters ponded for a while, and a few yards ponded because homeowners stupidly let their sprinkler systems run during the rain. Aside from that, no flood, no problems. The soil happily absorbed the inch. This is a situation where the absolute matters more than the proportion. If your area typically gets 72 inches of rain in a year, then a month's worth in one day could be serious.Labels: Heimatkunde
¶ 2:42 AM
