rain gage of false hope
Posted by Zonie on March 16, 2025 at 03:40:04
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At the airport the rainfall totals were modest, 0.10" Tuesday, 0.16" Thursday and 0.10" last night, but I was searching the automated rain gages for substantially higher readings. Thursday evening a gage near the west segment of Reach 11 showed 2.83" of rain.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true. A few hours later it was revised to zero. I suspect a technician got suspicious and investigated. Probably a tree branch grew over the gage and the branch bent down with rain and sent runoff directly into the gage.
I didn't think the real total was zero, so I went back to the west segment of Reach 11 this morning. There was more mud than last time, and I had fun slogging through it and splashing in the puddles, but it certainly wasn't what I would have expected with 2.83".
I encountered what looked like a green golf cart with off-road tires going through the mud. Atop it were several garbage bags. I had wondered who emptied the garbage cans in the recreation area and how it was done. Now I know.
There wasn't much mud beyond the first soccer field west of HWY 101, so I turned back there. We're expecting a week of sunshine and warmer weather, so next weekend probably the best I can do is find remnant mud on the state trust land.