Kansas needs more rain.

[mckitterick]

Wait, what did I just type? I meant to say, "GEEZUS, STOP WITH ALL THE RAIN ALREADY!"

Context: I just used the 5-gallon pail to scoop water out of my 40-gallon rain barrel - which collects runoff from 1/2 of my garage roof - 9 times, and it's almost ready for another scooping-out. Do the math.

Oh, and the rain just started about an hour ago.

Anyone having a drought out there? Because this water's coming from somewhere!

Chris

UPDATE: Half an hour later, I checked on the rain-barrel, just out of curiosity. You guess it: Almost full again, and I had to dump 6 more buckets. Where does all this water go? And why can't we save it for the drought months? This is fascinating.

PS: Thunder and lightning, too, but no hail or tornadoes as we got on Saturday.

Comments

[siro-gravity.livejournal.com]

portland is wet, too, so it's not ours!!

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I figured that!

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

OK, so I know Kansas weather is a bit rock and roll at times (I shall not forget my arrival at KCI in a hurry, believe me; nor the exciting tornado warnings on the radio) but I honestly hadn't realised you got quite so much rain all at once.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Neither did I. This rain-barrel is teaching me many things (see update, above).

[solan-t.livejournal.com]

We don't, usually. But then, storms are unpredictable.

[tully01.livejournal.com]

Last Sunday night in Wichita we got over six inches in about six hours. A full 20% of our annual average. Kansas is like that. When the state was being settled the promoters would talk about the average rainfall but never ever mention the variability between drought and flood.

Our main reservoir is currently full, we divert many millions of gallons to recharging the Equus Beds aquifer rather than let it roll south, and whatever we don't use just heads for Tulsa via the Arkansas River.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

It actually only takes about 1 inch of rain to fill my rainbarrel, and it only diverts water from about 5 feet of gutter. It's amazing how fast they fill up!

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I bet that's your whole roof, though, right? This is only 1/2 of my garage roof!

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Nope, that's the kicker...It's one measly part of one face. Just blows my mind that so much water is being shed by my roof...

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Holy cow! This collection thing really shows us how much mass that those big rain-clouds carry.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Scary, huh?

[solan-t.livejournal.com]

With any luck, the worst will have passed over the Grand View Triangle before I have to leave work.

With any luck...

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Good luck! I plan to walk up the hill soon, and am "looking forward" to getting soaked on the way up :-p

[solan-t.livejournal.com]

Bwahahahahaha! I heard the raid start, it was so hard.

[arian1.livejournal.com]

Roof runoff generally doesn't make for good drinking water. Just saying :)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I'm not drinking it, and the grass sure doesn't need more, so I'm dumping it down the drain. Such a waste.

[fortyozspartan.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about where Kansas gets its drinking water but I know Cincinnati gets it from the Ohio River. After a lot of really high-tech treatment of course. In the case of the Ohio River Valley, just think of the volume of water it must move being around 30 feet deep in the dry season. On top of that, there's the aquifer that has contact with the Ohio River. Most of the rain water is probably going into tributaries that drain into the Ohio which then goes into the Mississippi and of course, into the Atlantic.

The issue of course isn't whether or not there's enough rain water in the year. It's how do you store all the rain water to begin with? Where would you put it? Humans go through so much water on a daily basis. If you think of your typical town with 1-3 big water towers, consider this: those towers can be emptied within 2-3 days if they are not replenished.

Turns out the oceans are happy vessels.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Many years ago, my mother gave me a Golden Age-era book called, The Gods Hate Kansas. Perhaps you are seeing an effect of that.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Hardee har har!

(I recall that cover, have a magnet of it on the fridge.)

[tully01.livejournal.com]

Joseph Millard?

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

That's the one!

[robinbailey.livejournal.com]

Ah, THE GODS HATE KANSAS. Classic cover, classic story, and a classic (British) movie. I keep three copies of it on my shelves.

Millard, by the way, was quite an interesting character. He wrote not just sf, but westerns, sports stories, war stories ... a little bit of everything. As Heinlein said, "Specialization is for insects."

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Fascinating!

Also, I love that Heinlein quote. I shall save it for tactical use re: academia.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

That's the one :-).

I suspect it's really just the God of Evolution...

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Now you're blaspheming.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Not if you follow the Gospel of Pratchett.

[sf-reader.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where it is, but in addition to that one I have another edition of The Gods Hate Kansas with an equally bad (good) cover.

We have needed this rain, the winter was very dry.

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

In some places it is illegal to have a rain barrel, because the runoff, going into streams, is all allocated -- and the state thinks you are stealing water that belongs to someone downstream.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hear about a Colorado developer who is trying to build a green neighborhood that supplies its own water from rain, reducing pressure on a dropping aquifer. Irony: The state is blocking his project, even though only something like 1% of rain ever ends up back in the aquifer.