The "Drought" Continues - UPDATED

"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion) 06/22/2020 at 08:10 • Filed to: weather

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When I look out the window, everything looks lush and green, which, basically, it is. But If you look closer, you’ll see dried-up lawns all over the place, and wet spots on local trails are like, late September levels of dry.

update - I found a map that shows just how dry it really, is, it’s not just localized - we’re down ~3-6" based on the map; because the data is by county and we’re right near a junction of three counties, it’s not terribly localized . But for sure, we need some rain, yo.

Still, the official designation is just Stage 1 (of 7) in terms of drought; but it’s notable that we have reached an official designation. It hasn’t been all fun in the sun though. Thunderstorms have been popping up and slamming down into little spots all over the state, sometimes not for days, but over the weekend we fell into the tropical pattern of hot sun in the morning with thunderstorms in the afternoon.

And yet, for our specific location, ALL the storms seem to have largely missed us, since all the way back to mid-May. Even over the weekend, we went out to an island on the lake and closely monitored the sky to the north:

We could even see lightning for a brief time, and I looked at the radar several times. It was clearly not coming our direction and it sputtered out after a while. But we heard that the area this storm hit saw 1.5" of rain in about 20 minutes. It was nasty, but isolated.

Yesterday, in a different location, we were watching the sky and the radar, and saw this:

We were at the beach on the shore you can see there, near the middle of the picture, and that cell looked like it was coming right for us. The radar confirmed that, so we got packed up and ready to move if we had to. And yet, it broke up and never came. Towns in every direction from us have been hit at least once in the past week. We have seen rain in the distance from our house - twice yesterday alone - and yet, we get nothing.

At home before dinner, the western sky looked menacing:

And yet, the thunder we were hearing was to our north, much closer. Neither storm gave us so much as a single drop of rain.

The next few days are predicted to be littered with pop-up thunderstorms here and there, just like the previous few. I can only hope that we get some rain from one of them; it’s rather amazing we’ve been missed completely for all this time.

It’s strange to think of us as being in a drought. Most things with roots more than 2" deep are doing just fine. Storms are dropping massive quantities of water all over the place. But it reminds me that spot showers are just not the same as a soaking rain from a cold front crossing the entire state.

On the plus side, no rain means the lake level drops and beaches get bigger and bigger! But I think I’d really like some rain.

facw > functionoverfashion 06/22/2020 at 08:16

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We got heavy rain here yesterday. It’s been a dry spring (and winter) , but I don’t think enough to put us in a drought state, and hopefully that storm keeps it that way.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > functionoverfashion 06/22/2020 at 08:17

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On the plus side, no rain means the lake level drops and beaches get bigger and bigger!

It also means submerged objects get closer and closer to the surface. Nothing like hitting something where you’ve driven 100 times before because the lake level is significantly down.

We’ve been experiencing the same thing though. We haven’t seen any rain in over a week. We were supposed to see rain all weekend, but it was so hit and miss we only got a short 5 min downpour. It’s finally supposed to rain today, but again it looks like it’ll be hit and miss so we’ll see.

TheRealBicycleBuck > functionoverfashion 06/22/2020 at 08:25

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I wish I could send you some of our rain. We woke to thunderstorms this morning and expect more of the same for the rest of the week. It’s the normal summer pattern. 

66P1800inpieces > functionoverfashion 06/22/2020 at 08:39

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I live in New Jersey, I feel like it hasn’t really rained in weeks. I checked the reservoir levels before using my sprinklers and they are not too out of alignment with the norm . I have water saving sprinklers (they create less mist that would otherwise evaporate) and try to keep watering to a minimum but realized my front was like dust so I ran them over the weekend.  

functionoverfashion > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 06/22/2020 at 08:47

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On submerged objects - our lake is well-known for this, and at the marina we would absolutely see more prop and lower unit damage when the lake was low.

We’ve seen less than 1/2" of rain at our house since mid-May. Normal 30-day totals are about 4" this time of year. 

TheRealBicycleBuck > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 06/22/2020 at 09:00

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We worked on a project with the Texas General Land Office to catalog the locations of abandoned structures along the Texas coast. Some of them, like this capped and abandoned oil well, are easy to locate:

Others, like this abandoned well, appear and disappear with the tides:

Navigation in Texas bays is serious business. 

functionoverfashion > 66P1800inpieces 06/22/2020 at 09:23

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Our lake is down a bit from normal. I keep track of lake level year to year with data from the state, you can see when it basically stopped raining:

The thick red line peaks last on 5/4 with a little blip on 5/19. We’ve dipped below average but only by 1.5" - yet it’s noticeable, in part because last year it was a few inches up as you can see on the chart. I started including last years’ data as a reference because that’s what people always remember. “When I was here last year, that rock was under (or out, or whatever)...”

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > functionoverfashion 06/22/2020 at 09:52

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I was at Lake Hartwell on the Georgia/SC border on the weekend, and it was quite muggy - and it also rained for maybe two hours on Saturday. I think in general places I’ve been in the southeast have been up this year overall. I remember some years back, Georgia was in enough drought that Hartwell had 10ft beaches of greasy red clay everywhere - ugh.

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > 66P1800inpieces 06/22/2020 at 10:15

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Where in Jersey? I’ve had at least 3 full days of rain over the last two weeks out by me. I’m having to cut my lawn twice a week now, it’s starting to get annoying...

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > 66P1800inpieces 06/22/2020 at 10:15

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Where in Jersey? I’ve had at least 3 full days of rain over the last two weeks out by me. I’m having to cut my lawn twice a week now, it’s starting to get annoying...

66P1800inpieces > TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. 06/22/2020 at 10:35

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Bergen County (a/k/a Covid central).  I checked weather.com and we have had about .6 inches in the last 42 days. 

66P1800inpieces > functionoverfashion 06/22/2020 at 10:38

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I see it is pretty close, but might be on that down trend sooner than prior years.

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > 66P1800inpieces 06/22/2020 at 10:48

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Damn, down in Mercer we’ve gotten .56 in the last 7 days. 

66P1800inpieces > TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. 06/22/2020 at 11:03

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For those not familiar with New Jersey anything south of the north is the south. So while Mercer is dab smack in the middle of the state a person from the northern part would say that it is South Jersey. No positive or negative connotation, we are just too lazy to look at a map. I guess I would consider anything south Jersey to be the shore so that would be a positive . I doubt most people in my county are even aware of the counties at the bottom of the state like Cumberland.

functionoverfashion > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/22/2020 at 11:04

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Oh man, that’s scary. We’ve got rocks but if you slow down you can see them. And the ones that aren’t near shore are *mostly* marked, if the buoys are intact. 

functionoverfashion > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/22/2020 at 11:12

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Ugh, greasy clay beaches don’t sound great. At least our lake is pretty carefully regulated and only fluctuates by about 2' total every year on average. The absolute extremes since they’ve been keeping records are only 3.69 feet apart. But it’s amazing how different it feels when it’s a little low or high or just different from last year. 

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > functionoverfashion 06/22/2020 at 11:23

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Man I kinda sorta miss “weather”. Its so hard to explain that weather simply doesnt happen in Socal. Sure we get winter storms but those are just the dreary rolls in over night, it rains a bit, usually dries out midday, and continues to rain later. Never lightning/thunder and never a summer squall type thing. This is more predictable here so id still prefer it. But I legitimately forget what rain smells like and thunder is some mysterious forgotten concept as well. I actually am happy when it thunderstorms when I visit other places now, it makes it really feel like a trip haha. Wild thunderstorms both when I visited Jackson, WY and Denver, CO the last couple summers and it really completed the experience. 

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > functionoverfashion 06/22/2020 at 11:41

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Meanwhile in Montana-some of my ridding buddies:

jeepoftheseus > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/22/2020 at 13:01

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I’v e spent my fair share of time on Hartwell on the SC side (Go Tigers!) and recall that drought. Roads were beginning to resurface before it turned. That was wild. 

functionoverfashion > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 06/22/2020 at 13:05

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What’s funny is, if I had been really unlucky lately, I would have been hosed on a few MTB rides. Some of the places we’ve ridden recently are among those that have been direct hits by these isolated storms! 

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > 66P1800inpieces 06/22/2020 at 15:45

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I live in Central Jersey...

66P1800inpieces > TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. 06/22/2020 at 19:07

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Right, South Jerz.

functionoverfashion > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 06/22/2020 at 21:27

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Ha, I can’t really imagine, honestly. I get anxious when the weather doesn’t change every few days. I mean, it depends on what the pattern is, like, if my only goal is to get lake time, I’ll take 2 weeks of sun happily. But I’m annoyed at watering my garden every night. And we can get stuck in wet patterns too, where it’s on-and-off drizzly or cloudy for a week or more. That gets old real fast, but then it changes. Not to mention seasons....

However, when I spent a few months on Maui I learned not to read the weather report because it was always comically the same. Wind and wave reports, that’s it. And it was beautiful. So, I guess I could live with that for a while lol

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > functionoverfashion 06/22/2020 at 22:59

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What are seasons? June is the coldest month of the year here often. Ive seen 90 in January. And ive definitely seen a leading 4 in the temperature in July. I mean sure its cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer, on average. But theres definitely no clear delineation between seasons. Spring happens, thats probably the only season. Its more like Spring, Summer, EXTRA Summer, FIRES, a random day or two of winter, and then Spring comes again. 

functionoverfashion > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 06/23/2020 at 06:57

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I do love how you can just drive into winter at will, during that “season.”  It’s no wonder people like to live there. And I think “wow I went skiing and boating on the same day” but it’s like slushy spring skiing and really cold boating lol

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > functionoverfashion 06/23/2020 at 10:46

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Yeah skiing and surfing same day is plenty doable. Ive done same weekend but not quite same day yet. Its nice that from the house it could be 60 degrees and the mountains in the distance will be covered in snow. Now that I live on a mountain, there are definitely some proper winter lows in the 30s but day time highs never dip below the 50s. 

TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts. > 66P1800inpieces 06/23/2020 at 14:52

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gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > functionoverfashion 06/23/2020 at 14:57

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i put fertilier down 3 weeks ago, and it still hasn’t dissolved. I have to double mow as I don’t bag and suck it up. we’ve had a couple nasty thunderstorms but barely a drop.