I got a whopping half-inch over the weekend in MA. Not that we need rain as it's been quite a wet summer here overall. 5 inches is huge!

Weather has generally been bizarre the past year, compared to 10-20 years ago. I think keeping a weather/garden diary might be a good idea in the years ahead!

We got some heavy rain last Thursday, but I don't think it was anywhere near as heavy as the previous(?) week when the remnants of Ida blew through. I was inside at work for most of the Thursday rain (no windows, only a small view out of a hallway door to the parking lot) so I couldn't really tell how much we got; rain was over when I left work!

I keep saying I'm going to get a rain gauge and never do....

:)

Dee

My 5" may be wrong. I was positive the rain guage was out of the way of "extraneous" rain (I recently moved it due to the plants around it growing too tall in its previous space.) But, when we went to pump out the boats ~10" away, they had a lot of water, but not 5" worth. Either my house was in the right spot for the skinny storms to dump, or my guage was not correct. Either way, it was still a very healthy shower!

Roxanna, I can't believe y9ou got 1/2 inch! i thought the radar looked like MA was very well covered with clouds, except for the most western tip where apparently nobody is allowed to live. ;-)

Dee, I had a guage from Johnny's and I let it get cracked in a freeze. I waited for 2 years to buy another one b/c I didn't want to pay shipping, then with COVID they were only selling to commercial growers, etc. I finally bought a very similar one from Amazon, actaully two, and am very happy. It's fun to have two and compare rain amounts to be sure they are each placed well and test accuracy.

Roxanna, you are blessed to have such friendships! I loved reading that post and imagining you all sharing so much together. Acorns aplenty!

Thanks, Deanna, for reading and enjoying my post -- as soon as I sent it, I worried that it was a bit too far off topic, and wordy, and not something of interest. I don't post often, but when I do, it is usually "the dam has broken" and the words just spill forth!

And, yes, I am definitely blessed to still have these six friends, with whom I share many memories. No matter how distant we may be, nor how infrequently we communicate, we are immediately right back "together" just as if we'd seen each other an hour ago! No lack of conversation between this gang! (Excuse the run-on sentence above, lol)

Roxanna I agree - lovely post and I enjoyed reading it! Nice that you have such wonderful relationships.

I gotta say I always wondered about the accuracy of rain gauges. I mean, you have something with an inch-round opening lol. But I like your idea deanna of having two and comparing. Plus there are so many cute and interesting gauges out there - they're just kind of nice accessories in the garden!

:)

Dee

Roxanna what a wonderful story of enduring friendships!

I have always relied on decorative glass rain gauges. Last year we installed a fairly expensive weather station out in the garden. It's wifi enabled and registered with weather underground. We have apps and websites that provide way more data than we need to know :).

In the beginning I figured I'd check the accuracy of the reported rain totals by comparing the weather station data to my glass gauges. Well they were never the same. The glass ones always registered higher totals. The more rain we received, the higher the variance.

So I complained to the resident electronic geek who insisted it was my glass gauges that were wrong. To prove the point, said resident electronic geek decided to run a calibration routine which proved that the weather station was accurate. I was told the variance was due to the glass lip around the top of the gauge. Apparently it catches just enough additional water to cause the difference. Oh whatever, right? lol

So now I just go with whatever total the weather station registers.

We continue to get plenty of rain. Last storm we had a steady rain that was heavy at times and ended up with 2 more inches of rain. I think I’m over 60+ inches of rain, which is even more than the local region has gotten on average.

I don’t have a rain gauge - I use an empty plastic container that holds 5.5 inches total. If it’s more than that, I’m not measuring it. It stays upright in a corner of an empty raised vegetable bed out in the open, that has no plants around to influence the collection. Is there some reason I should wonder if it is accurate? I guess it is as accurate as I need it to judge whether to water or not. And it lines up with my perceptions of whether I’m getting enough rain and how the plants respond.

Sue, that sounds like a great set up and I’m sure it’s useful to know a lot of different information. Lowest temp in the winter to know how cold your plants are experiencing. It also sounds like fun tracking the weather on your own property.

Roxanna, You really are blessed to still have relationships from high school! It’s so easy to drift apart, That’s quite a commitment to hold onto people through all the ins and outs along the way. I bet that yearly trip together really helps.

And I always feel my posts are way too long, lol. So, I hope you won’t let that be a reason not to post. Some people don’t have the time or the interest to read everything in a long post, but some people do. I enjoy detail and off topic too.

PM, the only thing that would make it not accurate is the sloped sides. An inch of rain will fill up to a higher level on the bottom than on the top. But, for general knowledge of rainfall, it's perfect. You're not going to get 1/2 inch and have that cup show 2"! It will be fairly close to accurate, but you will have always gotten less inches than the cup shows. My guage is also sloped, but the inch increments are much farther spaced out at the bottom. I'll try to post a pic.

PM, You all have definitely gotten SO much more rain than us! We've gotten a really nice amount--out of the drought, but not soggy. It's actually fairly fascinating to me how weather systems seems to track out to sea at Massachussetts, just like hurricanes. Probably the Gulf Stream?

One thing I thankful for here is that we apparently have wetter falls, which I did not know until I looked it up this year. I always thought our wet falls were an anomally. I think the ocean contributes. But, it makes fall dividing, moving easier. I did some major dividing/moving a couple of weeks ago before our 5" rainfall and haven't had to worry one bit about extra watering.

Sue, I've toyed with the idea of getting one of the AccuRite serious weather stations. The science nerd in me wants EXACT answers. I think I'm resisting because I don't need one more thing to be exact about right now. I'd love to get all that data and create graphs, etc., but then I think to myself, "You could just learn to sit still and enjoy a cup of coffee." A huge part of me is jealous you have one! I feel pretty certain it's in my future, but not right now.

PM, you're posts are NEVER too long. Each one is completely enjoyable and personable. You're a faithful garden forum friend!

Deanna, Good to know about the sloped sides. Then maybe I’ve gotten less than I thought, but for my purposes, it suits me. And compared to other seasons, the numbers might be a little off, but definitely, this one season we have had more rain than I’ve ever had on this property in 30+ years.

I do notice that on the weather forecasts, that the weather patterns do track out to sea often before it gets to Northern NH and Maine. I wonder if you have separate weather patterns from us? Anything that comes across the MidWest in your direction, rather than up along the coast? Some years, the Southern part of MA gets a lot of the precipitation and then tracks out and I get less where I am too.

We normally used to have wetter falls that I always anticipated, but with climate change, that hasn’t been as true as it used to be.

Thank you, Deanna - lots of faithful gardeners here at GW. So many who have been here for decades and keep posting despite some of the technical problems with Houzz.

To you maybe my posts are never too long…lol. And yours are never too long for me. Dee is another one that has longer posts which I also enjoy. And I enjoy that it is a conversation that is broader sometimes than topical and personal, yes. Thankful for those who can offer concise, topical comments just as much. Great to have both.

More rain here the past two days -- about 2 inches! Guess we will be going into winter with no dearth of precipitation, which is a good thing. On the other hand, it often seems too wet out for me to do what is needed in the gardens... I am part cat, I think, and no longer like getting wet when I work, lol.

BUT!! This year I have actually planted in the ground everything that needs planting! That is a major shock, esp. to my DH (who, sometimes, is not so "dear", when he keeps pointing out my failures concerning my plant ghetto...). Of course, this year, I really limited myself buying new plants, which was not the most fun. A-hem.

Thanks to all of you who have enjoyed and remarked on my ramblings. I'd mention you each by name, but my mind's ability to keep more than two things together at the same time these days is becoming strained. So, just to keep things rambling again, 'cause I know you don't have any other claims on your time...

I must inform you that I have known the friends I mentioned in previous post for most of my life. One from the age of 5 (kindergarten), the twins from 4th grade, and the other three from high school. Letters (real ones!!! that use stamps!!) are sent, emailing often and sometimes phone calls keep us still involved. And, of course, that annual autumn trip to York Beach for our long weekend gathering (17 years and counting --IF things ever go back to "normal" and we each keep our health (physical, the mental goofiness will remain the same as ever), and if the creek don't rise... We call our group the "Sixters", as we started out with six of us, then added the seventh. It's a play on the fact that we are closer than many sisters, and the number "six". However, we still call ourselves the Sixters, as that defines our bond. It is so lovely having them in my life all this time!! They are the best!

And IMO, long posts are great -- other people's!

Roxanna - I think it’s great for all the plants to be going into winter with plenty of precipitation. It can only mean a better spring. We are so lucky when so many people have the opposite.

I know what you mean about not wanting to get wet outside. I have a large shrub that’s hanging over one of my gates and even after the rain stops, if I forget and walk through the gate, I get soaked, because it’s hanging too low. [g] A reminder to prune it higher next spring.

Congratulations on getting everything planted. Wow, come next spring, with all this moisture and everything planted, you are going to be so pleased.

And I hope you are able to get your annual trip with the Sixters accomplished sooner than later.

I think someone pointed out how much rain I seemed to get last season. I don't know which thread it was on, but I just wanted to update. While I didn't actually count the inches of rain I did get, we compared our water bill this year to last and it was HALF what it was the year before! Only difference has to be watering the garden. I thought it would be less, but half? lol Now if it would only rain that much every season!

I had nearly 30 inches of rain from July 1 thru September (most of September's rain came on ONE day). Local supermarket and mall were closed for weeks as they were under 5 feet of water. Most of it was tropical storm related. I can live without the monsoonal summers, thank you very much!

5 feet of water? Wow, that's huge! I actually must live in an area that is higher or something. Regardless of tropical storms or not, in 40 years we've never even had standing water on our street or in our neighborhood or even in the businesses nearby. We consider ourselves very fortunate.

And there are so many mature trees in the yards surrounding our property that they just suck up the moisture. I can't even grow perennials that need a lot of moisture because my garden is normally too dry. So the rain I had this summer was all beneficial and welcome. We'd had about 5 years of droughty summers that required significant amounts of watering, before this past season, when it seemed to be just the right amount.

Yes, I have a lot of trees on my property and only had a bit of water in my basement. But just down my block, cars were stranded. You probably saw this video below, but the September 1, 2020 storm brought record rain within hourly time periods, and local creeks that people did not even know existed turned into raging rivers and inundated a lot of real estate.

NYC subway, September 1, 2020

Wow, crazy! Those poor people!