Wishing for more Rain!

 If anyone had ever told me in my other life of 49 years living either in Louisiana or Texas that I would care how much rain I got in a year, I would have laughed til I cried. In July 1968 when we arrived in Houston, there was 21 days of rain straight.  I had three children under 4 years old at the time.  I remember every one of those days.

In my younger life in Louisiana, it was made up of bayous, Spanish moss and cypress knees in Lake Bistineau.  Or Caddo Lake or Valentine Lake.  You get my drift.  Rain, like boudin, was not hard to find. 

Then in Houston, Texas it was not uncommon to have 12 inches of rain in a day.  Heck one day we had 42 inches in 24 hours.  Of course, cars,  18 wheelers and boats were floating all over the place, but it did rain that much in August 1979. 

Now I'm living in a semi-arid area.  Not as bad as the photograph above.  At least we have wildflowers, lots of trees and beautiful plants but we need rain to refill the aquifers that provide us water.

It was typical when I arrived in  2001 to have 21 inches of rain a year.  Most of it in that three to four month time frame called summer. In fact, to make sure I wasn't dreaming I went to the SMA weather website, www.mapaverdesanmiguel.org/ to recheck my memory.

Here's the stats:  2006, 21.05; 2007, 21.29; 2008, 21.80; 2009, 15.53; 2010, the year of the bad flood in February, 25.23 inches; 2011, 15.43; and this year, so far 14.68 inches.  We need about 6 or 7 more inches.  That's a lot!

The acquiferwater table has dropped 16 ft in the 11 years I've been here.  The population has grown. I don't think it even takes a scientist to realize that if we don't have more rain, we're in for a difficult time and need far more water via rain.

Never thought I'd be saying I wanted more rain in my life.
But, I am!