We got some rain this morning! Not a lot, but enough to leave evidence behind.

It looks like the storm is crossing the AR/OK line at about Hackett Ar. now. Nothing has hit us yet. It looks like it will travel along a line fron Ft. smith to Poteau OK.. Its dark and thundering here but no rain, wind or hail yet.

Larry

Larry, Right now at our house it is actually raining. It is raining real raindrops, not those little fine misty ones that evaporate before they hit the ground. Our temperature dropped from 104 to 94 as the storm approached and then when the storm hit we went from 94 to 74 in no time at all. There's tremendous wind in the 40s and maybe low 50s at times but mostly in the 20s. Our local TV met says the lightning count for our storm cell was 2000 lightning strikes in about 30 minutes.

I don't think we'll get a lot of rain, but even just a few minutes of heavy rain is really nice. The down side is that western parts of the county have trees, power poles and power lines down. This year it is like there is some unwritten rule that we cannot have rain at all here unless some trees and power poles come down with it.

i hope everyone gets some rain.

Dawn

We received 4 tenths of an inch last evening. I'm thankful for every drop. The amounts ranged from none for many to 1.20 for a coworker. They were the hit and miss kind. A 1/2 mile made the difference between a nice shower/rain and nothing. We hit 92 this afternoon and it felt nice after the last few weeks of the extreme heat. And it looks like starting tomorrow it will return at least in the upper 90's. The next decent chance of moisture they say is next Monday. Jay

zero for us

So far we've had about 9/10s of an inch and three fire departments have been paged out to deal with 'damage' (but not our VFD).

I think we're forecast to hit 95 tomorrow, Jay, but then it is back into the 100s for a while. Tonight's cooldown is nice!

Scott, Based on all those NWS graphics posted the last couple of days, I was pretty sure you'd get rain and we likely would not. I am sorry none has fallen there yet and hope a stray storm finds you.

I was watching a Statue of Liberty webcam earlier and it started hailing there. Apparently Lady Liberty is in the midst of a storm.

This rain is quite a relief, but y'all know what it means...anyone who got rain today likely will have a killer heat index tomorrow.

Dawn

Zip here tho daughter got a .10th 15 miles away.

A very nice storm popped up in the last 30 minutes, but it's south of us 10 miles and going south. They have gotten half an inch so far in that area. Still zero here.

March 19 was our last rain over an inch, and the only one we have had in all of 2012. We had 0.81 on April 15. I think there was 0.52 or something on a day in May and then 0.59 on about June 15. Unbelievable. July looks now to be a total miss, and August is the third driest month on average (Jan and Feb drier). I'm not optimistic. So far only the trees younger than 10 years are dying.

We are in a bad drought, but we have also received 4.6" of rain in July. We are also behind several inches for the year, but 4.6 inches in July does not happen often here. We received just over .5" a while ago. You can travel 10 miles in any direction from my house and see much dryer conditions.

Larry

we managed .39 had mostly wind, broke a significant branch from the chaste tree, and blew some fairly heavy chairs around on the patio.
I took the evening off from the usual dragging hoses and buckets. LOL
back to it tomorrow morning.
mo

Scott and Dorothy, I am sorry y'all didn't get some good rainfall. Even better than the rainfall was how much the air cooled off--30 degrees in less than two hours. It was wonderful.

Larry, You've had really good luck with rain lately. I am green with envy, but I cannot complain because our 9/10s of an inch was desperately needed and I am so grateful to have it.

I just came back from a house fire. We couldn't save the house because it was fully engulfed before we arrived. I feel so bad for the family who lost their home and probably everything that was in it. We were out there with three other fire departments, paramedics and law enforcement officers for 2 or 3 hours and have been home only long enough to eat a sandwich and take a shower. I tell y'all it is simply uncanny. It seems like every time we get rain we get paged out to a fire or a wreck, or sometimes both. That appears to be the price we pay for having rain.

I'm dreading the next few days. I bet the humidity will be pretty bad. On the other hand, maybe the fields will green up a little and the grasshoppers will reverse themselves and leave the garden and go back to the pastures.

Dawn

Our July rainfall is .13, so no question that we are dry.

Zilch, nadda, but it was way cooler yesterday, and enjoyed by me, while I was first out in the yard, and later organized my shed.

If it hadn't cooled off, my shed would still be a mess. :)

Moni

We have now had an unbelievable 6.95" at my house for the month of July. I have been saying for the past two years that we could not even buy a drop of rain. That is higher than any monthly average for FT. Smith. I expect this is well above what we received for Apr. May and June totaled.

I hope that all of you will also get some of this much needed rain.

Larry, in very wet South Sebastian County, Arkansas.

I was really counting on getting some rain yesterday, but we got zilch. We've had a whopping 0.05" for the month of July, and our last day even over a tenth of an inch was June 16th. The last day we got over an inch of rain was May 20th. This is feeling like a bad rerun of last year, although we had a much better spring to give things a decent start.

Still nothing for us. We had 5 inches total the last few days of May and the first couple days of June. Almost nothing since.

I know how all of you feel who did not receive rainfall yet in July and who are suffering from severe rain deficits this year. Last July we did not receive any rain at all, and it was much hotter then than it is now. It was horrible.

I hope rainfall relief arrives soon.

Carol, That's the driest I've ever seen it in your part of the state and Scott's and Dorothy's as well. Y'all are having my typical drought conditions, but in an area used to a whole lot more rainfall than my plants ever dream of having, even in a good year. I would imagine that makes drought much worse for your permanent plantings since they are used to abundant moisture most years.

Heather, I've noticed your area, and the Norman area as well, are incredibly dry this summer. Scary dry. You doing ok there? I cannot imagine being pregnant in this heat, and I hope you're staying inside and staying cool and comfortable.

I thought I'd throw in this comment since mosquitoes often follow rain. Yesterday the local news media reported we had a confirmed case of West Nile Virus in Carter County. The woman was treated and recovered. She was lucky. They've already had some WNV-related deaths in the D-FW Metroplex this year, where the WNV is at what they are calling almost epidemic levels. Since I am closer to DFW than OKC, I've been following the WNV progression very closely as it has moved our way.

The Carter County case was the eighth WNV case in Oklahoma so far this year.

I worked outside this morning early, but as soon as a mosquito started buzzing around, I came back inside.

Remember Jay's words of wisdom every time rain has missed his area these last 4 years of drought in Kansas. He always says that today he's one day closer to rainfall than he was yesterday. I repeat those words to myself when we're in the midst of a dry spell here.

Even in the worst of drought years, rain does fall. It just doesn't fall when we want it to.

Hang in there.

I've linked the 'last 30 days' rainfall map. Look at the pattern of the rainfall--mostly around some of the edges of the state, especially in SE OK which still is desperately dry despite the rainfall. There's a nice little wet spot SW of OKC where there's been good rain, but otherwise the interior areas of the state really haven't had the rainfall.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful:

Yep, I'm staying cool. Thankfully I'm in the second trimester for another 8 weeks or so, so I'm feeling totally normal...though not ambitious enough to go out in the heat to pull all the weeds that have taken over the garden. Keeping everything watered every few days is enough work for me!

We recieved .88 on Wednesday evening. I didn't look yesterday, but today we're down to 515 on the KBDI, I think we were over 600 prior to that.

Sherri, That is great. You keep having just enough rain each month to keep your garden hopes alive and it keeps knocking your KBDI back down to a lower number. I don't remember the last time summer rains were so kind to you up there.

Our KBDI had reached 576 but is back down to 555. It wasn't a huge change, but any change helps.

I'll link the KBDI map. There's way too much of the red shading to violet on parts of this map. Rain is needed so desperately.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Today's KBDI Map (0= Great, 800=Very Bad)