Donald A. Windsor
2011 was a wet year, very wet I thought. But how wet? On January 1, 2011, I started logging whether or not any precipitation fell during the 24-hour day. I continued every day throughout the year and am still faithfully keeping track.
For 2011, we had 190 dry days (52.1%) and 175 wet days (47.9%). So, in general, we had a wet day for almost every dry day. Here is a breakdown by month. Note that 7 months had more dry days and only 4 months had more wet days.
Dry Days Wet Days Most Days
January 13 18 Wet
February 15 13 Dry
March 17 14 Dry
April 12 19 Wet
May 11 20 Wet
June 20 10 Dry
July 21 10 Dry
August 17 14 Dry
September 15 15 -
October 16 15 Dry
November 19 11 Dry
December 14 17 Wet
But, I have no baseline for comparison, so I intend to continue doing this. My data reflect conditions where I live, in the City of Norwich.
Precipitation is usually reported as inches of rain or snow. For my purposes, this is inadequate. I want to know whether the ground or the foliage is wet, or if I leave something outside, will it get wet? Or more importantly, if I schedule an event, is it liable to be a wet day? Besides, some plants thrive on being constantly wet; others do not.
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