Enjoying the rain?

Glad to see we are finally getting rain in the midlands of South Carolina - too bad it is accompanied by thunder, lightning and heavy winds.... It's good for the gardens though.

We are getting a bit also. Yesterday we had 1.1" and I suspect we will have almost that much tonight. No major wind or lightening here tho.....

We're having the annual summer monsoons here in the western NC foothills: thunderstorms possible every day, more likely than not at least several times a week. I've got lots of plantings that are new this year; so far they're loving it, but hope it won't get to be too much for them...

Oh, do appreciate those monsoons. They are traditional here but lately they have avoided this area. This year we are already short more than 20" of rain. Every little bit we get just runs off because the ground is so hard.

After I said we would get another inch of rain the other day we only got .02". Pitiful.

It is funny, I have a puppy who insists on going out rain or not so the other night when it was raining and I had to walk him I came across two neighbors just standing out in the rain because it felt so good.

20" short of normal rain already?! That's truly sad. And I used to love to walk in the rain, or just sit on the front porch and enjoy; but then our house was hit by lightning a few years ago, and that was the end of that love affair. I saw what it did to all our phones and appliances: don't want to experience it personally!

Oh, I know what you mean about lightening and would never go out in that. When we lived in the SC Midlands we had terrible lightening storms and our house was hit also; fortunately with only minor (TV) damage.

Here on the coast however, we are just not getting those knock down storms. So many who are new to the area think we have terrible storms but they just don't know what it was like before the weather changed; back when we used to have those daily monsoons with all kinds of fireworks from the sky. Interestingly, Charleston and Savannah are getting rain and some pretty bad wind damage; the rain is just missing the coastal area in between.

I've seen the public service announcement on television that insists that if thunder is audible at all, it's important to seek cover because lightning is also present. Do ya'll do that? Thunder happens so often here, but I've always thought if it remained far away, it was still safe to be outdoors.

By the way, ardesia, we're also seriously deficient in the wet stuff.

I've heard the same thing, fleurs, but must admit I don't always do so; especially if I'm "almost finished" a garden project and feeling goal-oriented. Probably not at all wise, however. It's just that during monsoon season, like we're having at the moment, there seems to always be a thunderstorm somewhere in the area, and it's hard to localize sound here in the foothills/mountains. I know you can count the seconds between hearing thunder and seeing lightning, and figure out how close it is, but don't remember how...

I always heard it was 1 second per mile but that's not too scientific is it? :-)

I haven't seen the PSA but 'thunder' is the sound made by lightning. We call many atmospheric 'noises' thunder (rumbling, etc) but if it's not associated with lightning then it isn't actually thunder in the meteorology world.

By referencing the time in seconds from seeing the lightning strike to hearing the accompanying thunder, you can estimate lightning's distance. This is possible because of the difference in the speed that light travels through air and the speed at which sound travels through air. Light travels through air at almost 900,000 times the speed that sound does.

A "lightning-to-thunder" time of 5 seconds indicates that the strike was approximately 1 mile away. Ten seconds = 2 miles, etc. If the time delay between the lightning flash and the sound of thunder is less than 30 seconds (6 miles), then you should definately seek immediate shelter.

For better accuracy, if the thunder is heard 3 seconds after the lightning is seen, then sound (whose speed is approximated as 345 m/s) has traveled a distance of

distance = v * t = 345 m/s * 3 s = 1035 m

If this value is converted to miles (divide by 1600 m/1 mi), then the storm is a distance of 0.65 miles away.

That's our meteorology lesson for today... and we received rain again this evening - a nice downpour that lasted about an hour or so...

Thanks for that info, Michael: I'll never remember the formula, but the 30-second rule is easy to remember!

Michael, I had to print out that meterology lesson so I can take some time to absortb that info. Obviously the one second/mile is not even close to accurate.

I'm terribly envious of your rain; send some to the coast please, we are desperate int his area.

We can't spare any rain up here and I wish we had some more today. It was a blistering 104º according the sign at the high school. In the greenhouses, we had the shade cloth on, vents open, fans running and it was still blistering - soaking wet after being in there for 60 seconds.

However, we do have a surplus supply of fireants if you would take those as a substitute for the rain. I am sure I can pack up several thousand of them and will ship them to you FREE of charge. Even in this heat, they would probably survive the trip. Interested? :)

Michael, please keep those fire ants right there in SOUTH Carolina. I'm sure they're up here, but I've not yet had to deal with them and would love to keep it that way. And 104 degrees: my sympathies. That is brutal!

You had better keep your fire ants, I just don't think they will like it around here.

We do have fire ants but far fewer than when I lived in Columbia. Perhaps is it my salty soil they do not care for. We don't have slugs either.

In dry summers like this one we do have Fiddler Crabs that come up into the garden and munch on mulch and the bugs in it. Can I trade you some crabs for rain? :-)))))))

spartacus - according to the local news, the heat index was a nice, toasty 113º. Can't wait til fall gets here... People in the Southwest have worse heat than we do but they claim its a 'dry heat' so they like it better. The inside of my oven is a dry heat but I'm not in any hurry to climb in it...

And ardesia, y'all SHOULD have fire ants. The lower part of the state had them first; they migrated to the midlands and parts of the upstate in the 70's and 80's - now we have them everywhere. It's not fair that yall exported them up here, we would have preferred it if yall would have sent the beach up here instead of ants. I don't think you can actually kill them - you just 'move' them. If you put down granules to get rid of the fire ants, I believe they just pack their bags and move a few feet over. The goal is to constantly keep them on the move until they end up in the neighbors yard instead of mine.

We need to figure out a way to send them back to Florida and Georgia - that is the path they took to get to SC. I believe our state is the one to blame for kudzu which is clogging up their lakes as well as our own - but thats not enough to even the score for the fire ants.

:-)))))))) Oh they are around, just not in my yard because we are on the marsh and everything is salty.

Still dry here :-(((((((

I thought we were getting rain again tonight - it kind of clouded up, a little bit of thunder off in the distance, temperature dropped about 10 degrees and then NOTHING. Not even a drop. We have a chance for thunderstorms tomorrow - another day over 100º. The heat wave is supposed to break on Saturday and then it will be a cool again - back to the mid-90s next week. :)

I don't know, Michael; I think kudzu might even the score for almost anything: that stuff is purely evil - and ineradicable.

I don't know.... kudzu has never gotten inside of my shirt or shorts and bitten me 100 times before I could kill it or get it off of me. It has messed up our lakes pretty bad tho - and it has stopped my boat more than once. But again, it has never bitten me so its a hard decision.

Michael, I think what is in the lakes is Hydrilla which grows as fast or faster than Kudzu and it makes wonderful compost. I used to go out to Lake Murray and pull up garbage bagfulls of it and drag it home (oh, the car did not smell good). Back then I had a large koi pond and the fish loved it too, They would slurp it up like a kid with spaghetti.

There is alady in Spartanburg who makes wonderful baskets and papers with Kudzu; now if we could only find a good use for fire ants!

Good point, Michael; though I'm having an awful fantasy of biting kudzu, maybe a remake of Little Shop of Horrors (lol).

you're right - that is hydrilla.... i plead temporary insanity or loss of memory... or something.

We are supposed to have severe thunderstorms this evening. I hope not - I just want RAIN. Thunderstorms, especially those accompanied by hail like we've had recently, are not good for little plants.

Well, we had a knock down drag em out thunder storm last evening with the electric out, plants and huge limbs/trees flying all over the place and guess what - all that activity and only 1.2" of rain. This is getting old!!!!! Time for a rain dance.

We had rain earlier tonight - a big storm was blowing over but we only had minimal rain. Right now, we have what appears to be a huge storm blowing in - heavy thunder/lightning (and I'm about to get off the computer for the night) but no rain as of yet.

Several places in SC have had flooding from the rain today. I think they said Pacolet received several inches of rain within an hour and that caused flooding. Pretty bad when they have to warn people to not drive through areas that 'appear to be flooded' because several people have already become stranded tonight. I would think that would be common sense - if it looks like a foot of water - dont drive thru it.

Surely you know that common sense is one of the least common attributes of the human race... Just look at the Darwin Awards, or the decisions of government, for confirmation...

:-))))))

No rain for us.Tourists all very happy.Every afternoon it rumbles and grumbles,my doggie goes nuts but no rain.If I stand outside for too long I am as wet as if it had rained.