Woo-hoo!! I see a couple of little blips on the radar screen. One up by Woodward and the other NE of McAlester. Where are you located?

Pat

Madge just came from town and said 3 or 4 drops had hit the windshield about 2 miles down the road. I went out and put up a rain gauge, but its not wet yet.

Dorothy, Lucky you! I hope it rains for a good couple of hours. We haven't had real rain here in so long that I find myself longing for a good old-fashioned rainstorm with heavy thunder and lightning. I'd love to fall asleep to the sound of a good thunderstorm.

Slowpoke, You get the same kind of rain we get. The invisible kind. We can't see our rain because it isn't there!

My rain gauge is dry and dusty. I should bring it inside and put some water in it just so it can remember what water feels like.

Dawn

It didn't last long. Got another 3/10ths inch. That's the third 3/10ths inch this month. I'm over in Adair Co, Pat. At least it gives the dogs a break and a cool place to lie.

The more things change around me the more they stay the same here. I worked in the garden till around 11:30. Then headed to Guymon,OK. Around 4:30 I left Guymon and headed to Hooker to meet my stepdad and eat supper. I drove in rain between Guymon and Hooker. It rained some while we ate and then I drove in rain off and on to within about 15 miles of Elkhart. Bone dry here with dust blowing. I finished up my bean planting this morning. The cukes are breaking the ground. I'm heading out to try to put up a shade over the top of my my caged tomato plants. They are all saying cooler temps toward the end of this coming week and the first part of the next before the heat sets in again. As much as I would like to spray on some bloom/rooting mix I think I'd best wait. At least till I see how much the shade helps. I think it will help a bunch if I can keep it on. There is rain SW of us that seems to be moving in our direction. But will have to hear it on the roof before I believe it hasn't detoured. Jay

Jay, isn't that frustrating to go somewhere not too far away and have rain and come home to the same old, same old. Here's hoping for a break for all of us.

Dorothy,
I believe I saw the clouds which dropped the rain at your place. They were beautiful, from a distance, and didn't come to Tahlequah. Oh well! Will continue to hope.

I got to working in the garden yesterday morning and before I knew it it was 1 PM and I was feeling woozy. I hadn't eaten, though I had drunk a good deal of liquids. Plus, the heat was getting to me. Gotta watch that heat.

George

Be careful, George. 1 pm is later than we stay out. We are almost always under the AC by 11 am. And stay there until 6 or 7 pm by which time the shade is on the garden even if it is still 90 degrees.

Haven't forgotten about having you and Jerreth over for a steak. Just figured it would be better to wait for cooler weather.

8 p.m. Sunday. I'm seeing masses of what look like thunderheads to the north of us, and the weather radar is showing some precip around Woodward, Ponca City, south of McAlester and a few other places. I hope that means some of you might be getting rain??????

Patt

Pat - I just got a few drops here in the Village in OKC and came in to look at the radar. Hear a little thunder. Fingers and toes are crossed (and you bet that makes it hard to type!)

11 p.m. and it's raining lightly in Bethel Acres. The dog went outside and looked around like "huh?? what's that stuff?" I doubt if it will be much, but we'll take every drop we can get.

We received 1 1/2" between yesterday afternoon and 3:30 AM this morning! That's a good start! Everyone in the family was so very happy yesterday afternoon when we had the first shower. Then, during the night, I awoke to the sound of thunder and the gentle falling of rain.

Dorothy, Jerreth and I talked yesterday, and decided, if it's alright with you, we'll come over September 2nd in the evening.By setting a date that "far off" we are almost certainly going to be able to pull it off. Life has been so very hectic for us. Jerreth's work has been extremely demanding and stressful (teaching English as a second language through a subcontracted company at Northeastern State University). By that time she should either have another job or be unemployed.

Unless you would like to use it before that time, we could bring the corn sheller out at that time. It would save you some gasoline.

George

We got almost 1/2" of rain about 3:00 this morning. What a blessing! Not a drought breaker by any means, but a reminder that God has not forgotten us - and the temp this morning is 77 instead of 87! Maybe the tomato blooms will set????? hope hope hope

Sounds good, George. I'll mark it on the calendar. I'll let you know about the corn. I only planted two rows this year and have been watering it but am not sure that ony two rows will pollinate well. Four rows did very well last year and I still have corn left over.

We got a whopping 0.07" last night, but I guess it's better than nothing. The temporary break from the heat is lovely, too. I think the last time we got over half an inch in one day was....May? I'll probably water my plants tonight anyway because there's no way the deeper roots are going to benefit from the amount we got.

We too received precious drops of about 0.09" last night! Even with little rain, our garden is looking fabulous this morning, all plants are so very happy and playing in the morning cool breeze. I thought to stay back and have fun with them but no choice I have to come office. Have a beautiful day! -Chandra

You know, I have a theory when it comes to precipitation. Since I have been in Oklahoma (a Michigan transplant), any time they give my small region a 30% chance of rain, we do NOT get the rain. I now get more excited about 20% chance of rain, or even 10%. When it is 30%, I would plan an outdoor picnic I feel that strongly about the correlation. Seriously, I have noticed this over the last few years. I used to hold off on watering the gardens when there was 30% or more chance of rain. After some painfully learned lessons, I now only hold off if there is 75% chance, or greater, of rain.

Maybe our meteoroligist will chime in on this one, but I read somewhere that the figure of 20% means that conditions are good for rain and probably 20 percent of the viewing area will get rain. LOL I don't know if that is true or not, but it dashed my hopes.

We got thunder and light rain last night too and my plants look happier this morning as well. Of course, many of them got watered last night before the rain came, so they got a double dose. The rain always seems to hasten the ripening process for tomatoes tho and the blushing ones seem to turn more quickly.

In the truest sense of the probability's meaning, on days with a 20% chance of rain, you should get rain 20% of the time. So, 8 out of 10 days that have a 20% chance will be dry. However, the forecaster's use of probabilities are a bit different. 20% could mean that he/she expects only isolated showers that cover 20% of the area. However, it could also mean that there's a chance a big squall line will move through and soak everyone, but it would require the atmospheric conditions to be just right for it to happen and the forecaster thinks it's more likely that they won't. Then there's uncertainty with our forecast models, too. Like, we generally anywhere from three to five different models to make a single forecast and you tend to see the low percent chances of rain if maybe one or two models think something will happen and the others have nothing. There's also differences between how each individual forecaster does his thing, but in general we try to stay as consistent as possible.

In a nutshell, there's really not much difference between 20 or 30% chance of rain, and we have to remember that a 20% chance means that there's an 80% chance it won't happen. Unfortunately I'm an eternal optimist and get my hopes up for even the 10% days. I've had lots of disappointments so far this summer obviously. ;)

All I can say is to repeat what I heard on the radio one day in WA. The newscaster said there was a 10% chance of rain, and that it was "10 percenting like crazy out there".

I wish it would do more of the 20% stuff here. However, it's only about 84 on the porch, and when I went out to the garden I found that some of the tall grasses in the surrounding area were still damp. That's a huge change from a few days ago. The humidity is way up, but I can live with that if it will help the plants.

Pat

Honestly I prefer the "10 percenting like crazy" days over the 70-80% bust days. I remember a few years ago most of the local forecasters (both tv and NWS) were freaking out about an impending blizzard, and they all seemed so sure it was going to happen that OU cancelled their fall graduation ceremony. We ended up with a trace of snow. I know winter precipitation is notoriously hard to forecast, but if you tell the public that you're certain something is going to happen, it better happen. I mentioned that "most" of the forecasters thought it would happen because there were several who were also scratching their heads wondering what the others were seeing (they were ones not in charge of the official forecasts obviously). In the end nothing happened, and a lot of people really had their plans messed up for nothing.

Here in Yukon it drizzled from sundown until about 2 am, and then it started pouring for about an hour. :) Enough to muddy up my garden so I don't have to water today. My mom up in Okarche got a lot more than me. I'm grateful for every drop we got!

We got nary a drop yesterday or today, but at least today was cooler. Topped out at only 95 with clouds a good part of the day.