Two Inches

FTLComm - Tisdale - Monday, July 23, 2001

It has been a long time since we in Tisdale have experienced any real and significant rainfall. The rains we had earlier rarely gave us much more than a couple of tenths of an inch but Sunday we had a real rain. Though some parts of Saskatchewan (Rockglen and Imperial) receive more violent storms with hail we only had a bit of grumbling from the sky then a good solid rain which left more water on the ground than the spring run off. The picture at the top of the page and those on the right show the scene during the rain from our front window. Water laying on the ground seems like a new thing to us.

Water running down a street as we see above, just North of the Beeland Co-op have not been seen in 2001 and there was a sense of relief as the rain fell and made its way to drainage ditches and the storm sewer system.

It seems every time it has rained this year my rain gauge has read considerably less than everyone else, I often considered that to be wishful thinking but it might also have something to do with the big poplar tree just East of the gauge which would deflect a lot of droplets in an East wind situation. Today's rain seemed to come pretty much straight down and you can see the two inches resting comfortably in the gauge. The big effect of this rain will be for pastures which are almost completely bare. Later wheat and barley crops will fill out from this rain and all canola should get a real benefit from this amount of moisture. Alas it is to late for the peas but it will get a boost to the last cut of alfalfa and those folks growing alfalfa seed.

Below are some of the places water collected in rather significant quantities. The culvert near the bus barns was running full and the parking lot was filling up as the culvert under the highway was having a tough time moving the water South.

This is a neighbours yard (below) and shows just how much of an effect this much rain can have. Clearly the weeping tile on the West side of our house was ineffective as we had water in our basement to mop up. Though we knew our eves need cleaning there seemed little point until today.