Rainfall Calculations and Blogger Friends to the Rescue, OR 59 Thousand Gallons of Rain on the Ground

Jeanie, here you've just gotten married only hours ago, and now you're already solving mathematical problems for the weak-minded, rain deluged Louisianians!? You are a generous "jeanie-ous"! Thanks, my lack of working out math problems past 1+3=4 or something like that, sorting out the bills and bank statements, etc. has made me weak-brained, I'm afraid. I used to like math, though I never excelled in it. (another post sometime, maybe.)

THANK you for the web site you mentioned. I went there and worked with the lovely formula. Since I'm not a surveyor, and since I'm assuming (and in good mathematics one never assumes anything) that our property is the approximate 1/2 acre I was once told it probably was, I'll use the figure of 21780 square feet to be the figure to monkey with. So after all the calculations, checking of calculations and thinking a bit and rechecking my calculations, I've arrived at a number to represent (perhaps loosely) the possible number of gallons that fell on our entire property last week in a 24 hour period. That number is . . . drum roll, please! 59,735.28 gallons total (give or take a few inches, or quarts, or sprinkles, or . . . whatever!) Anyway, after finding another formula, I came up with this way of determining how much water fell in my yard (approximately, of course) by using the following chart found at http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthrain.html. Somehow, it looked easier to comprehend, but the math works out so closely, it's all good! (In case you're wondering, the chart didn't copy, so this is what did copy!)


Amount of water received when an inch of rain occurs
Area Area(square miles) Area(square kilometers) Amount of water(gallons)

1 acre .000156 .004 27,154 gallons

Just to make it easier on myself, this is how I calculated:

Whereas 1 acre of surface = 27,154 gallons of water per 1 inch of rain

27,154 x 4.4 inches = 119,477.6 gallons on 1 acre. With me so far?

Then, since I only have approximately ½ acre of surface, I divided the 119,477.6 gallons by 2. That equals 59,738.8 (which is really close to the above calculations) then since a ½ acre equals 21780 square feet, the number of gallons that fell that day must be . . . 59738.8 divided by 21780, or 2.74 gallons per square foot, or something remotely close to that figure. Nearly 3 gallons of water over a square foot in one day. I think I need to get a cistern and work out a capture system to save some of that liquid for when the rains don't come! (Almost forgot to convert to liters for my friends "down under". It's about 14.16 liters per square foot.)

Whew! My brain hasn’t worked that hard since I took a college pre-calculus class over 11 years ago. And as you might guess, my ten year old son, who came with me (I was home schooling him—you might say) helped ME with MY homework for that class. What a twist, huh?


So, thank you Debby and Jeanie-ous for taking me more seriously than I take myself and actually helping me find a way to figure it all out.

However, I still want to know . . . don’t mind me if I seem a little silly, ‘cause I am, but what about all the pine straw and leaves that fell at the same time with the rain, and whether it sprinkled or torrentially poured, or the wind blew some of my rain onto the street or into the neighbor’s yard, or . . . or . . .

Okay. I’m stopping. It’s very late and my soft brain has done all it can do for one day.

Thanks again to my friends, and Jeanie, enjoy being married. Kiss V and ‘Salina for me. (I hope that doesn’t scare any of you, too much!)

I’m calling it a night. I’m not going to dream about rain, either. In gallons, or cubic or square feet. I’ll probably dream of the cleaning, scrubbing, dusting, washing, cooking I’ll be doing for the rest of the month getting ready for and enjoying Thanksgiving with my family!

Fabulous Friday

Friday. Friday morning. Friday is special to me and has been for over 38 years. (But I'm not telling why!) First thing out the door this morning, I heard the familiar Pileated Woodpeckers' odd call. We have many in the neighborhood due to the abundance of trees which, somehow, apparently assist the ample number of carpenter ants around here with their life's work--DESTRUCTION. They're often followed by termites and MORE DESTRUCTION. (ANOTHER POST, PERHAPS. Maybe not.) Carpenter ants are one of the woodpecker's "listed" favorite foods. Just so you know the facts.

The humidity was abundantly evident this over-cast morning--not as oppressing as the 100% humidity yesterday morning, but still enough to be uncomfortable--as I took a young friend to work. After dropping her off, I moved further west, not far, to pick up a couple of grocery items and a little cash before heading back home.

Returning to my car I noticed the heavy laden gray clouds to the east pierced with a few subdued golden shafts of sunlight erupting slightly right of my center-view. Nice effect for morning, I thought. As I began to drive through the parking lot to leave, I noticed blue patches of sky framed by fluffier, thinner, contrasting white clouds in the west. I turned east heading home. Minuscule water droplets suddenly began appearing on the windshield. The further I drove, the more frequent the droplets. Before long I could hear the raindrops landing with increasing regularity. The road began to glisten with its newly acquired layer of moisture. After turning north, an occasional huge drop of rain dripped from an overhanging tree branch to splat on my windshield along with the increasingly frequent smattering of tiny ones. The raindrops increased in intensity the further I drove. Hmmmm. Another east-to-west pattern--that's different, I thought. Usually it's the opposite.

TS Edouard--Why again, did they forget the "o" at the end? I mutter to myself. Often.--came in the traditional way--counter-clockwise--east-to-west earlier in the week. We prayed for rain. Edouard(o), passed us by with nary a drop. Glad it never became a hurricane, however!

So, when I got home I thought: Wow! RAIN! Actual, water falling from Heaven! I'm so grateful! The grass is burning up, along with a plethora of other what-should-be-green growing things. I'm SO grateful for the rain. I won't have to water today! (I'm sure our water bill will be at least triple the norm as it is.) I feel particularly blessed because I haven't done anything particular to have this prayer answered!

Then I thought another minute. Hmmmm. Well, I did get my husband's truck washed yesterday. I did water all the plants. We are going off this weekend. And, of course, I did pray for rain--not terribly fervently--but I DID pray for some.

At any rate, when I got to the house, I got out in the rain--sans umbrella--pushed the garbage can out to the road, then got the few groceries out and brought them inside. I had water trickling down my head to my neck. The shoulders and back of my shirt were rather damp. A couple of minutes later I hugged my daughter before she went through the door on her way to work. She stopped, grimaced slightly, then wiped off the excessive moisture I'd unwittingly left on her cheek/chin. Oh! Sorry! See you Sunday. Have a great day.

At least she smiled and said, "Bye, Mom. You and Dad have a great weekend."

And maybe we just will! I know I'm happy it rained--and it's supposed to continue doing so. Good start, right?

Gag! Cough! Cough! Sigh.

I'm miserable. True. Started a sore throat on Wednesday, last. ('Scuse me while I sneeze, cough and blow my nose.) Okay. Where was I? Well, Friday night I had the stuffy nose--you know the kind. Where for no apparent reason it just swells shut and you instantly become a mouth breather. Yeah. You look and sound especially intelligent at that point, of course. Anyway, Saturday night my husband had to make a speech/roast/presentation for one of the employees he's supervised for about 22 years. This guy has worked for the same company for 42+ years. I'm not kidding. (Actually, the "company" has changed hands about 5 times in that 42 years, but Mr. Earl has stuck with them--except for a short stint on active duty in the National Guard.)

That was okay. I made it through the meal, roast/honoring, etc. of Mr. Earl. Then, driving home my nose went completely shut. No air passage. Nada. Zip. Headache ensued and coughing. By Sunday, well I won't gross you out with all the yucky details, but let it be noted that green and slime would only begin to approach describing some of my distress on Sunday morning. I did persevere and made it to Church and through Church, and am glad I did.

Then we had a storm. Living in Louisiana means you can have tremendous downpours, often with accompanying side effects: lightening, thunder (that shakes the foundation of your home, bones, psyche), hail, damaging winds (including tornadoes). So, all day Sunday it was dark and threatening. I got home from Church around quarter to one. We'd already had a few downpours equalling about 1/2 inch of accumulated rain at that point. I sat down to eat a bite of lunch around 1:30. Then, as one says, "the bottom fell out." Over the next hour to hour and a half, the rain gauge--starting with 1/2" at 1:30 filled to the 4" mark. About an hour later were we under a tornado warning. When that expired, we were given another.

I'm happy to report that we were spared that monster. Though others not so many miles away weren't so fortunate. I spoke with one friend who mentioned that she and her family had to pull off the road for about 15 minutes because she couldn't see to drive while rain, hail and wind ripped around them. Then, after resuming their way home they had to circumvent downed pine trees that crossed the roads, one even leaning against power lines, burning and sparking.

Before the night was through, we'd had another 1.5 inches of rain.

Sunday night, I couldn't sleep. Couldn't breathe. Could cough. Repeatedly. Till my back hurt. (That's a new one for me! Usually it's my chest, abdomen that hurts after lots of coughing!) I was M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E most of yesterday. BUT . . . I slept better last night--though I slept sitting up. Today I still have a sore throat, stuffed nose/sinuses, headache and some coughing. I even considered going to the doctor. BUT, since I feel so crummy and live at least 30 to 90 miles away from the doctors I would/could possibly be "worked in" to see, I'll probably just wait it out. The 30 mile trip is 45 minutes--one way. The 90 mile trip is closer to 1.5 hours. It's something I know some of you can relate to!

Yes, I'm drinking copious amounts of water, some orange juice--which I'm about out of, unfortunately--eating some, though I have little to no appetite. Blowing my nose like crazy--when it will open enough to do that. Coughing. Yes. Still coughing--but maybe not so much. And--if I don't talk too much--perhaps I won't cough so much. I think I'll go take some acetaminophen for my pain and suffering. I'll spare the cough meds for bedtime as they're more essential at that point.

NOW, I hope YOU feel better and have a much better day than I seem to be. I'm sure things will look up soon.

Oh. We've already had some rain today and are scheduled to have more. And tomorrow. We did have a nice river rushing across our driveway, Sunday. And the neighbors had a nice lake in their back yard. We'll see what today brings!

Have a good 'un!