There’s an atmospheric river in the sky, and it’s pouring right on us. The extreme weather conditions – over five inches of rain in just a few days – give our rain garden a real test. We don’t know how much rain fell, because our rain gauge overflowed before the current storm, and it’s raining too hard to run out and check the gauge up close – looks like at least another inch!
At the height of one storm, the 40 gallon rain bucket filled in minutes. We’ve already emptied it three times – 120 gallons of water poured in the rain garden. In normal years, it fills after a storm, gets used and distributed until it’s almost empty, then it refills in subsequent storms. It’s never been emptied three times in one storm series!
Normally, during less dramatic conditions, rain falls on the garden, runs into the basin of the rain garden, and slowly infiltrates the ground. During larger storm events, we let the sump fill with water and only turn on the pump when the main storm is over. This better mimics a natural flood cycle, storing water and releasing it more slowly into the watershed. During this storm, however, every basin and catchment is filled to the brim, and the pump is running, although it can’t keep up. The gutters are filled to the brim in the street – they can’t keep up, either.
Luckily, the forecast is for less rain and even a bit of sun, so this is unlikely to be the dreaded ARk event, where it rains for 48 days and 48 nights (thus beating Noah) and floods the entire state – California’s Katrina event. Still, it would not have taken much more to push the water out of the street and over the front yards.