CoolHandMike

I think the only reason I'm looking forward to warmer temps is the increased chances of atmospheric instability. It's so dry here. We had 3" of rain at the end of April and nadda since. I think... I think this again might be my fault. Last November I bought a fancy-pants, new electric snowblower that saw virtually zero use last winter. Just a week ago, I installed a really pretty, 55gal rain barrel off the side of the house. Am I cursed? I mean, I'm an atheist, so no, but still. Am I? lol global weirding in full effect

It was nice and cloudy after I signed off work, so I decided to tackle the 7 yards of mulch in my driveway. Wouldn't you know it, the sun just had to pop out 30 minutes in and I was done. Taking a water break and getting back at it.

Yeah we've got a lot of veggies already planted, so a frost advisory would be pretty devastating at this point. It's akin to what farmers must feel like, being helpless to the whims of the weather. Only it's a small, backyard garden for us and we'll survive either way. Personally, I just want to make a crap-load of tomato sauce is all.

Was a very nice couple of days today and yesterday, got so much yard work done. We more than doubled our garden square footage to ~200 sq ft this year, replete with soaker hoses, and I installed a 55gal rain barrel on one corner of the house. Now we just need it to rain. There's been no measurable rain in two weeks and it is starting to show. String-trimming the narrow ditches at the edges of our lawn yields giant dust clouds these days, and the trees are clearly stressed as evidenced by all the winged maple seeds from yet another mast year (last one was just two years ago). Yesterday's rain almost completely missed us, with just a couple of drops here and there, but nothing in the gauge. Last year by this point we had ~3" for the first two weeks of May. I'll be surprised if we don't get another burn ban up here in Berks if this continues. It's been so dry that I'm getting static electrical shocks exiting my car.

Clouds broke and guess what.

I think we're lucky here in that it's been cloudy almost all day. We'd be in the 90's for sure otherwise.

Looks like the bulk of today's rain will pass to my south. Time to start sorting out the soaker hoses.

Exactly what we just had. Spent the day alternating between putting on and taking off my jacket as the sun and the clouds competed for dominance at a site in Manayunk. Such wild temperature swings in the space of a few minutes happened all day. My face is wind-blown. What a weird start to May.

Hit 2.5" for the day. Amazing. Even more so if you have a look at local stream gauge data. Virtually nothing is in even "near" or "minor" flood stage in our region, even with sustained rain over much of the day. That's how dry it's been this month. https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/index.php?wfo=phi

2.15". I'm in the firehose.

Now thundering just south of us. 1.63" on the rain gauge.

Our lucky day finally! My mom (about an hour south) said they are getting lightning.

This is the rain we needed. More coming down as well. Finally getting a system to train over us instead of a dry slot! Here's our total for this weekend:

That's kinda what I said earlier, 100% agree. This is a nice respite, but we need more. Hopefully Sunday's event pans out in similar fashion.

.7" IMBY, let's goooo!

Made it over half-an-inch. NOW we're talking.

This storm wants to fringe me so hard. At least it's been a nice, quiet, rainy day, and I found some time to bake a couple of batches of bread! Hearing pretty much non-stop sirens for the past few hours, it seems like everyone completely forgot how to drive in the wet again. Reminds me a lot of SoCal when the rainy season starts up in the fall, actually. Anyway, .37" is hardly going to put a dent in our overall dry conditions up here, but at least it's not a complete deluge that just runs right off into the river. This will soak in a little bit. Forecast calls for rain pretty much through to tomorrow afternoon, so we shall see.

Has just BARELY begun to sprinkle. I remain skeptical.

Virga intensifying.

You're probably good. Probably got an hour of virga at least lol

Maybe maybe maybe...

I'm cautiously optimistic, but I'll believe it (and be sure to post here enthusiastically) when I see it. Edging the grass along the sidewalk today with the string trimmer just tossed up clouds of dusty, dry earth, an unusual sight in April.

Neighbors to the right mowed at lunch. My wife (who has actually gleefully taken over mower duties, and I'm totally not complaining) texts me "Dammit." Then several hours later, neighbors to the left mow. She texts: "DAMMIT!" After we both signed off work, I string-trimmed while she mowed. End result? Our combined 1/3 of the cul-de-sac looking fresh as heck rn. It really didn't need mowing, but if the forecast pans out (we'll see. I forecast the now typical Reading dry slot happening), it'd be waist-high by the time we'd be able to mow it again. We're still at about a fifth of the rain we received last year, and a quarter of the rain we received in April in 2021. Our May flowers are gonna need some help if we get shafted again.

F-ing POURED on me all the way down the turnpike from Downingtown to Morgantown, but thankfully everybody was playing nice today for some reason. Not a drop at my house, hoping this supposed "deluge" pans out. We're already watering the garden, something that we usually don't have to do until mid-to-late summer.

That's... little bit too close to home. I guess I should be glad we were in the dry slot for so long. I recall checking for relative velocity a couple of times while the system was moving through, but with KDIX down for maintenance, I think large portions of coverage around me were in various shadows. REALLY wish we had a local radar at RDG to fill in that gap.