Monday, I was amazed to find out just how spotty recent rains have been. Just a few miles from my over-worked rain gauge I found a dry landscape and a tree which needed water.
Particularly heavy rain passed over my location recently, resulting in the following very impressive but hardly representative rainfall totals:
3 day rainfall last week: 3.28
July rainfall: 6.94
June-July total: 12.17
Monday, I looked at a tree in Cleves, OH, just a few miles west of my location. I had to dig some dirt away from the base of this relatively young Kousa dogwood. It had been planted a little too deep.
The soil was bone dry down to several inches. I had seen a couple CoCoRaHS rainfall reports near Cleves which were substantially lower than at my house. Apparently Cleves missed much of the recent rain. I can confirm that much of the heavy rainfall I received was from small cells which did not cover a large area.
The take home message: You cannot rely on the rainfall at the airport or at other reporting stations to determine how much rain fell in your yard. You must have a rain gauge and keep track of what falls in your yard. Click here to find Arbor Doctor’s rain gauge selection.