Rain Update

It seems like every year we talk about how strange the weather is. I wonder if there is such a thing as a “normal” year anymore. Having been in Philadelphia only 5 years, I have to rely on folks who have spent their whole lives here to give me a perspective on the current year’s deviation from “normal.” In the last five years, according to the locals, I’ve experience extraordinarily snowy, cold winters, as well as extraordinarily mild winters. Last summer started hot and dry, then turned to extremely wet. This summer started early and was at first very dry. The last few weeks have relieved the drought locally and we’ve had some spectacular down pours! This is the first year we have had a rain gauge at the farm and I’ve become quite obsessed with checking it! My father (who is a professor of meteorology) would be proud. I was curious to see if we had “caught up” on rain fall yet this year. Turns out while we are ahead of the average rainfall for the month of August, we still have a ways to go to catch up to the yearly average. However, it is remarkable to look at last year’s numbers and see that the month of August was about three times as rainy! Here is an interesting review, from NOAA.com:

Precipitation (inches)	Observed Value	Normal Value	Last Year
Month to Date	4.36	2.22	12.95
Since June 1	8.78	10.00	18.22
Since January 1	19.9	26.74	35.75