Making up rainfall shortages

[nixon]

Maybe someone could explain this to me . I see where areas need X amount of rain to make up for a given shortage . That makes no sense to me at all . Say my area is short 12 " , if I get that all in one storm , would that make things all balance out ? Seems to me that there would be a better way to guage things .

 

[muleman]

I am fairly certain the Ag service guys do some bores and measure moisture at several depths to come up with soil moisture levels. Any digging I have done lately the ground just crumbles into powder down to 2 feet. Wind and hot sun evaporate a lot of it pretty quick.

 

[FrancSevin]

Weather service doesn't measure soil moisture levels to determine shortfalls of rain.

Simply actuarial tables of long term regional averages.

So even though your area might cycle from 18" to 24" annual rain fail,,,if you are at 21" then you are average.

If, however you are at 18" then you are 3" below "normal".

Also, if they predict 30% chance of showers, it means either,,,,,

30% of the are in question will get rain
OR
There is a 3 in 10 chance all of it will get wet.


So when they offer 50% chance for rain, then actually they are sayin',,,,either it will,,,,, or it won't.

Your tax dollars at work sir!

 

[bczoom]

1. Drink beer.

2. Pee on yard.

3. If it doesn't puddle, go to step 1.

 

[BRGTold]

1. Drink beer.

2. Pee on yard.

3. If it doesn't puddle, go to step 1.

And Repeate daily..

 

[EastTexFrank]

I talked to the weather guy from one of the local stations a while back and I asked him, "What the heck does a 50% chance of rain mean?".

He told me that it meant that there would be 50/50 chance that the conditions would exist that could produce rain, not that there was a 50/50 chance that it would actually rain. ?????

I was none the wiser really.