That is amazing for Love County. And yes, but you got my annual rainfall.LOL The Mesonet does not reflect a lot of rainfall for us, and ours was only a problem because of when it fell. It is just hard for the ground to take so much at one time. I also don't think that the Mesonet total for Jay is accurate for Grove. In one instance, over a 48 hour period the TV station said we got 7.2 inches and the Mesonet was only reporting a couple of inches. In a recent rain however, they reported a half inch and we only got a sprinkle. I need to buy a new rain gauge and keep track of every drop like you and Dorothy do. I'll try not to let another freeze and break. Our property is now dry on the surface and I have had to water new plantings and raised beds, but the in-ground mulched parts still have moisture. Our lake is still very full, and about 4 1/2 feet above normal. I passed the park at Bernice yesterday and there was still water up around some of the picnic tables.

It has been a strange year to try to have a garden, but those in high places seemed to be having a really good year. I am on high ground, but my problem area was because of my french drain dumping into my garden area and I was not just dealing with the rain that was falling on the garden, which would have been bad enough on it's own without the water from the roof adding to the problem. We will be making some changes before the next rainy season.

I'm at the point that I don't know whether to hope for more rain so I won't have to start watering the plants in containers daily, or to hope that no more falls so the deeper layers of soil can dry out. Of course, we'll get what we get no matter what I'm hoping for.

Our rainfall was running higher than Burneyville's all year long and at one point we were consistently staying about 4" ahead of them. Then, on the night that Lone Grove flooded, Burneyville got a lot more than us and almost caught up to us. We've had a little more than Burneyville---just under 49"---but the difference is relatively small. No matter how much our rainfall differs from theirs throughout the year, by the end of the year we always seem to wind up within a couple of tenths of an inch of one another. It's odd how that happens. Our rainfall so far is over 200% of normal through the end of June, but I doubt the second half of the year will remain that wet. Usually at this time of the year it is like pulling teeth to get significant rain to fall.

I suspect the folks whose fields dry out enough for haying will get a great second cutting. Many got the first cutting in May before the heaviest rainfall arrived. The folks who lease river bottom land probably won't get any hay out of it because a lot of it still has tons of silt, mud and pools of water. The lake is no longer going over the spillway and the river is below flood stage, but low-lying areas still remain flooded and some roads are buried in mud or washed out. The road problems will continue for some time as a lot of them are not easily remedied, and FEMA aid for repairs often takes years to actually arrive.

My sloping garden is not, technically, on high ground, but the raised beds functioned well enough that we lost relatively few plants. A lot of the folks around us who have gardens have more or less abandoned them and let the weeds take them over, or never really got them completely planted. There's just a handful of us in our neighborhood who still have gardens that look half-decent and are actively producing.

This will sound strange, but I'm having a hard time getting used to having lush, green fields all around us. I'm so used to seeing all the fields brown out at this time of the year that the green fields and roadsides seem all wrong. I like them, though, and it is wonderful for the fish, turtles, frogs, crawdads and more to have adequate moisture for once. Even the snakes have not been as bad in June as usual. We only have had to shoot 1 or 2 per week so far in June, and none in July although we haven't been in July very long. Some people are having a lot more trouble with snakes getting up close to their house, on their porches or in their outbuildings than we are, so I'm not complaining.

The sun and heat are starting to dry things out a lot. I don't think we have any standing puddles left at all as of yesterday, but there is rain in the forecast in the next few days. If it is like the usual summertime rain, we won't get much out of the coming storms.

We're forecasted for more rain this week and I hope so. if not, we're headed right back into drought - right on the edge in payne county with about 18" rainfall as posted via Mesonet to date. i mean, that may be a lot but this heat will quickly set things back for us and many others. I hope not.

Bon, Oklahoma weather is so cruel. I think y'all could be headed right back into drought if the rain doesn't start falling there. You really haven't had enough rain this year even though the rain you got did bring you out of drought. We've had that happen some years....where we ever-so-slowly finally made it out of drought after months and months of rainfall only to have the rain abruptly stop falling and then the drought returned far too quickly. It astonishes me how quickly a flash drought can develop even after a recent period of heavy rainfall.

You know, if I have a complaint about this year's flooding rains (other than the fact that, you know, it flooded everybody and kept the soil too wet for planting to occur, for seeds to sprout, and for plants to grow and survive and produce) is that so much rain fell at once that much of it ran off instead of soaking in. That was especially true in May when we had 25.5" of rain. With that much falling in one month, most of it just ended up running off into creeks, ponds, rivers and lakes. I'd rather have had that 25.5" spread out over several months so more of it would soak in. When a lot of rain falls quickly it just isn't as helpful, long-term, as that amount of rain would have been if it had been more spread out, time-wise.

We had tremendous rainfall in 2007 with flooding slightly less serious than this year's flooding, and you would have thought we'd be wet forever, but we weren't. It always shocks me how quickly drought can return if the rain stops abruptly, especially in the summer months.

My garden plants were very hot and pretty dry yesterday and looked wilty even before noon. I had to fight the urge to water them. I checked them around sunset and everything had perked back up. I'm hoping the rain in our forecast actually falls because the last couple of days that we had rain in the forecast it fell all around us but missed us, an all-too-familiar pattern from too many previous droughts. I do not want to see that pattern return.

In our county, rain began falling last June and fell consistently for, well, the last year. Despite that, it still took flooding rainfall to finally get us out of drought, so it really took a long time and a lot of rain to end the drought that I was beginning to think would never end. I am going to be so disappointed if the rain stops falling because I think we'll go back into drought a lot more quickly than people expect. Areas like yours that only barely made it out of drought need rain more than we do, and I sure hope you get it this week.

Dawn

It's raining a little, now. Forecast for more this week. Hope you get some, too. Right now, guthrie is getting slammed and I think that storm will head your way.

If we can make it through the summer with a little rain or get heavy rain in the fall, we might make it. Let's hope.

Amen, Bon. Amen. Here in rural NE Norman at the 9PM hour - we hear the rumbling. We need it - sorta - but there's that trepidation because of the previous flooding..... fingers crossed. Indian Hills Road just got re-opened yesterday with very slippery fresh gravel but hey! It's OPEN! Our Franklin Road is still closed. The road crews can only do so much. Still - it saves me 6+ miles and at least 10 minutes on my commute into "town". One way.

P-Mac, I hope any rain that has fallen in your area last night or today didn't make your commute to work worse all over again.

The rain that has fallen here hasn't caused any problems at all because so far we've been in a dry slot and it all has missed us. In a way, that makes me happy because we certainly don't need for the flooding to return, but then, I'd rather have a least a little for the sake of all the flowers and herbs that have looked a little wilty the last few days.

I feel bad for the communities to my north where flooding is occurring right now. Paul's Valley, Sulphur, etc. didn't need any more flooding but they're getting it right now anyway.

We just finally got Scenic Hwy 77 reopened a couple of days ago after the water from the Lake Murray spillway finally stopped spilling over, and it would be a shame if we got enough rain to close the highway again, so maybe I should be hoping against getting more rain.

Bon, Did you get rain? It seems like it was spotty up in your area.

Our best chance of rain is today, although the morning showers have missed us. Maybe we'll get some later.

I have a canning marathon planned for today as I continue to work my way through bowls and buckets of tomatoes. I planned my activity for today as if we were going to get so much rain that I can't step outdoors. Hmmm. At the rate things are going, I could be doing my canning outside on the grill, but I won't. I like canning indoors with the AC running.

Dawn

We were spit on. That's about it. The temp outside dropped, but by the behavior of the window a/c units, it couldn't rain if it wanted to.

Cloudy all week with slight chance of rain, but by a few days it should get wet. We'll see.

Paula, I'd imagine you're flood-weary as we are EQ weary. Our maters need some rain, though. At least, when we shake, the maters are getting pollinated. lol

Bon, Clearly you should be growing Martini bushes. Then you could serve martinis that have been shaken, not stirred. : ) Oh well, the odds of James Bond stopping by for a martini are slim anyhow. I know you surely must be tired of the earthquakes and I don't know how y'all ever will get relief from it.

For us, the quakes stopped when one particular water disposal injection well was voluntarily closed down by its owner (and a grateful community appreciated his decision to do that---he is a class act). I just don't see that happening on a widespread basis though, and I don't know what the answer is. The constant shaking and quaking would drive me crazy.

We're getting a few sprinkles now, but the QPF does not necessarily give us much hope that we'll get significant rainfall. Still, any rain is better than none, and I certainly don't want for us to have enough to bring back flooding in any shape, form or fashion. And, the QPF has been known to be really wrong at times. On our worst flooding days, we got a great deal more rain than what had been forecast.

In fact, I hope that this time we get as little as the QPF is forecasting because I'm finally getting SunGolds with traditional SunGold flavor and a lot less cracking than we saw in previous weeks, and I don't want for heavy rainfall to occur and ruin that.

It also would be a shame if heavy rain tonight or tomorrow night were to ruin the scheduled fireworks displays. The area lake businesses have suffered tremendously from the flooding and a nice Fourth of July weekend for those businesses that have managed to reopen would help the business owners a lot. Still, it is really hard to hope against rain in July because most years there is so little of it.

Dawn

There's an inch in my gauge this morning, and it fell in about an hours time last night. Cooler is nice. Owasso's fireworks are tonight. Happy 4th everyone.

I forgot all about July 4th even though Bill is off work, today. Wow. Self involved - a tad.

Just wanted a little shower, right. We had 3 1/2" in the gauge this morning. Our first rain about 9:00 was about an 1" then in the middle of the night the sky opened up. Water is standing everywhere. No flooding thank goodness.

It feels like it could storm this afternoon at any moment. We have clouds forming to the north, we'll just wait and see.

Trying to get the shop finished, builder says about mid week next week. Yea!!!!!

The rain can move on now. I knew I should have just turned on the sprinklers and left the weather out of it.

I had an empty 5 gallon bucket in my trailer. In a few hours yesterday it accumulated 8" of water.

We just planted 4,000 feet of Dia De San Juan corn and 3,000 feet of PEPH peas. I expect them to be very happy even though they will have to fight the weeds and grass.

Dawn,

I heard the toilet lid slam shut the other day. When I went to investigate, this is what I found in my restroom.
Broom and nylon twine came in handy.

About how our gardens were cracking after the rain in May, I saw this pic of a dried up lake in Cali . For some reason , soil that has been soaked cracks when it dries ..... maybe some scientist will come along and explain this

omg, Johnny. What kind of snake?

Bon,

Rat snake.

Johnny,

The rat snakes are horrible this year. Tim dragged one out of the chicken coop, where it was feasting on eggs (but not on chicks since the chicks were free-ranging with their mama) on Tuesday, and then shot it. That one was about 5' long. Then, on Thursday, Chris dragged a 6' long one out of the chicken coop. It was quite strong and fought him hard and got away before he could shoot it. The rooster was quite hysterical about the one on Thursday and was up on the front porch having a hysterical fit by the front door to alert us that something was in the coop. Usually when he is that upset it is a skunk, so in a odd sense, we were relieved that it was only a snake upsetting him.

I hate rat snakes almost more than I hate all the venomous snakes. The rat snakes will wrap themselves around even half-grown chicks or keats and squeeze them to death before they eat them. We lost 4 keats to one rat snake in one day a few years back.

I don't know if we have a flood-related population issue with the rat snakes but there's far too many of them in our chicken coops, driveway and yard this year, and they seem hungry. Maybe the floods washed away too many of the rodents and the snakes are getting a little hungry.

Most of the rain missed us, y'all, and I fear I will have to drag out the hose today and water the plants I have growing in containers. It has been nice to not have to do that much this year. We ended up getting several little showers coming through yesterday, but the total rainfall was just a smidgen over a half-inch.

Since our rain came in little waves during the daytime hours yesterday, our temperature, which was 73 degrees in the morning, stayed cool most of the day, not rising above 76 until mid-afternoon. Of course, to make up for lost time, it quickly shot up to 90 degrees once the rain clouds moved on and the sun came out. Still, for early July a high of 90 isn't bad.

I'm glad the heavy rains missed us. We have had perpetual cell phone and internet issues in our area ever since the May flooding. It seemed like the issues finally were clearing up (presumably all the cell towers were finally repaired after the flood damage) in June when the big second round of flooding hit and we were back at square one with poor cell service and even worse internet service. There's been a little improvement this week, but not much. It is hard to get on the internet and stay there for more than a couple of minutes unless you're on it at the unpopular morning hours between about 4 am and 7 am. I'll be glad when they get everything back to normal, and we're hoping for no more flooding.

Dawn

Dawn,

I am about to start a serious rat killing campaign. I have read that if I dramatically reduce the mouse and rat population, the rat snakes will move to where the food is.

I feel sorry for the people who will have all the guests arrive. :D