Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Rain, rain go ... nowhere!


We had planned to camp a few nights when Travis and Stephanie came to visit, but the weather was just not cooperative. Instead we visited the O'Fallon County Historical Museum, The Big-K drive up restaurant, the Carter County Museum in Ekalaka, Miles City, the Plevna Bar, Reynold's Grocery story ("Be Foxy, Shop at Reynolds!"), and our house a few times.

The temperature stayed right around 55-60 degrees, and it rained the whole time! Whenever I expressed my disappointment in this, people who live here just scoffed. It's beautiful weather, they say. The rain is a wonderful thing! Look at how green things are!

This puzzled me, so I did a few Google searches to find out what the deal is with precipitation.

Average yearly rainfall in Arlington Heights, IL = 33"
Average yearly rainfall in Baker, MT= 14"
Rain in April this year = 4"
Rain in May this year = 5.75"

So, yeah, we're getting a lot more rain this year in Baker. I don't know what this means yet, although I'm sure I'll learn soon enough. It's meant a lot more mowing and gardening than I was expecting, and a lot more mud. More laundry because of muddy dogs, and more trips out to the car with the vacuum cleaner.

2 comments:

Kristenanne said...

I'm not sure about down there, but up here it means a possible less insane fire season. And that is always a good thing!

... said...

They're saying that the grass will grow very long, and then dry out later in the season, making for a much shorter, but hotter season (I guess with longer/more dry grass to burn the fires will be bigger??). I really have no idea though...