Farm Progress

A couple of days ago, a passing cloud dropped a couple of teaspoons of rain — didn't even wet the street —- and all the while the sun was shining brightly.

Hembree Brandon, Editorial director

May 30, 2018

4 Min Read
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

Matthew 5:45 to the contrary, "For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust," in my neighborhood the rain falleth neither on the just nor the unjust.

Once summer came, overnight late April, until now, as May winds down, we've had basically no rain. Yet, a swath of Mississippi counties north of us have had rain after rain after rain. Along that corridor, there has, in many places, been so much rain that farmers had trouble getting fields prepared and crops planted.

A friend, who lives in one of those counties, e-mails me almost daily that he’s had another inch, another half-inch, another tenth of an inch. The town just 20 miles to the east of mine gets every rain that comes through. The town 30 miles to the west, ditto. I don't know how many times I've driven in downpours from either of those towns, but when I get within shouting distance of my town, the sun will be shining, and not a drop.

At our offices in the north Delta a week ago, it rained so hard the lawn was flooded and water was overflowing the ditches along the highway. Rains spread all across the usual north Mississippi path. But nary a drop in my town, as my yard, with some of the sorriest soil in the universe, became concrete.

A couple of days ago, a passing cloud dropped a couple of teaspoons of rain — didn't even wet the street —- and all the while the sun was shining brightly. What few drops there were evaporated about as soon as they hit the ground.

One day we got a good two inches of thunder, but somebody else got the rain.

My late across-the-street neighbor told me, sometime after we'd moved here 10 years ago and I was lamenting the absence of rain, "Well, it's the dome effect — there's a climatic dome over this town that keeps rain away." I figured he was joshing me, but with dry summer after dry summer (a couple of years ago, we went six months with no rain and were classified by the USDA in “extreme drought”), I more and more think perhaps he was right.

As tropical storm Alberto was forming and strengthening in the gulf, the weather gurus were issuing forecasts for our town of 80 percent rain/thunderstorms one day, 90 percent rain the next day, 100 percent rain the following day. One day we got a good two inches of thunder, but somebody else got the rain.

Yesterday (May 29), as Alberto had made landfall and was working its way northward, the forecast was for 100 percent rain, and radar projections showed heavy bands of rain and thunderstorms for our area. Our police department even issued a warning on neighborhood websites to be prepared for possible severe thunderstorms during the afternoon — which turned out to be sunny and hot, with not the first rumble of thunder or drop of rain.

Much of the north Mississippi corridor got rain yesterday. Friends in that area tell me there was water standing in the fields, which were already wet from almost daily rains the past month. One reported 1.4 inches in his rain gauge.

Now, I look out the window at sunshine, blue skies, high white cirrus clouds, and we’re back to the standard summer forecast of 10 percent chance of scattered showers. So, no relief in sight from my daily watering chores.

Today’s supercomputers and sophisticated weather models aside, much of forecasting is still akin to Middle Ages seers poking around in bird entrails or sticking a finger in the wind.

(P.S. It was always a maxim in the all-print days of the pre-internet era that you didn't write about weather because by the time the paper came out the weather you wrote about would likely have changed. I posted this piece this morning, and mid-afternoon a weather alert popped up on my phone and computer warning of an impending thunderstorm. Yeah, sure, I thought as I looked out my window to the east and saw clouds and sun, weather guys have missed the boat again. A couple of minutes later there was a window-rattling clap of thunder and in another minute, rain had moved in from the southwest. It lasted maybe 5 minutes, with gusty winds. So, after a couple dozen misses over the past month, the weather prognosticators finally managed to get one right. For which, thanks!)

About the Author(s)

Hembree Brandon

Editorial director, Farm Press

Hembree Brandon, editorial director, grew up in Mississippi and worked in public relations and edited weekly newspapers before joining Farm Press in 1973. He has served in various editorial positions with the Farm Press publications, in addition to writing about political, legislative, environmental, and regulatory issues.

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