We've had a lot of rain over the past Fri, Sat and just a wee bit Sun. There has been a flood advisory out for over 30 days!!
Beautiful Sun all today!
However, after the Mac emitted its "You-just-got-a-probably-urgent-email!" chime and I checked for new missives, I discovered that it was WC telling me that the bucket had tipped, again. After the second time I decided to see what was urinating in the rain collector (which has the bird spikes/lightening arrestors).
Turns out it was not an animal but a vegetative problem. There was the usual collection of pollen, but there was also a nearly perfectly round seed pod from either the Maple or the Crepe Myrtle almost perfectly sealing the collectors drain! The water level in the collector was within an inch of the top! I can't rule out that the seed pod placement might have been from a bird carrying the seed and then opening its beak in a cry of surprise when attempting to alight on the spikes.
At any rate, I "pulled the plug" and now have an all-time high rain rate: "26.18 in/hr at 3:36 pm"! I assume that rate is possibly a
local record, I'll contact the local NWS office tomorrow to see if there is any kind of reward...
I will also be doing some table editing tomorrow.
I hope I can find the 'rate' value as easily as the amount values, hopefully I can simply delete any 'rate' above the 5.33 earlier this month. I'm pretty sure the several short but heavy rains last week never got above 1"/per hr.
Any suggestions for spreading the total rain over this fairly short time span? It's seen in todays total as only 1.14". I think simply adding a few hundredths over the 48 hours would be best? I can't even be sure of any zero amounts being accurate. I simply don't know when the drain became clogged...
I'll also be checking the collector after every sprinkle for the next few months...