Yesterday there was some drizzle. But the rain didn't start until about 11 pm last night. About twelve hours later blue sky reappeared overhead in between the clouds, with Mount Barnabe reporting 0.7 inches and Woodacre reporting 1.3 inches. The clear plastic container in our yard, first used to dispense salsa, now normally used to collect raspberries and dig in the sand and pour water in the pool, collected close to two inches, but it has a convex bottom that is displacing water. When I turn it upside down (quicker than pouring it into another container, measuring both diameters, and adjusting the depth with a ratio), it is about 1.25 inches deep. That confirms my feeling that the Woodacre total looked more like what we got here, at the mouth of Larsen Creek.
The last time it rained--not counting foggy drippy days--was on June 25th, almost three months ago. A typical summer. About an inch of water fell from the sky that day. That was the first rain of the summer, and this day was the last. It has rained twice since the sun was at its furthest point north in its annual analemma.
The first rain of the rainy season is always magical, because something significant happens that hasn't happened for a quarter of a year. But today feels more special than usual. June was our wettest month since December (until now). Last fall was wet, but then it just stopped raining in January, depriving us of most of the rainy season's rain. This was the second of two relatively dry winters in a row.
So today's rain is a big deal. It isn't just the first rain to wet the dusty soil since June. It isn't just the first rain to wet the dry yellow grass on the hillsides. It isn't just the first rain to connect all the disconnected pools in San Geronimo Creek, where the fish and crayfish wait out the long, warm days of late summer. It is all these things, but it is more. It is the first September rain in a year where it is the most rain since December, following a dry year.
Last October's rain ended the 2012 dry season. That dry season also lasted since June, but was preceded by 15 inches that March (wet), 8 inches that January (almost average), and almost 3 inches in February (dry) and in April (wet).
If you look at the flow in San Geronimo Creek, which represents late-summer groundwater conditions, the flow this summer was only 1/2 to 3/4 what it was last summer. It has been dry.
And I am grateful for the rain.
