Rainfall Totals - 2023

It's been quite a battle for the past few days and hence my "radio silence."  I developed a bad toothache.  It's the canine tooth on the front right side.  My face is swollen and am experiencing throbbing pain and although I'm taking antibiotics every 12 hours, there's no knocking this thing down.  The dentist can see me tomorrow morning at 10:15.  I am counting the hours...  But I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  We'll try our best to power through this thing.

Let's change the subject and talk about rainfall for the previous year.  We keep detailed records by day and month, showing totals.  Here is the chart for 2023:

This was quite a shocking year for us, with only 45.63 inches of total rainfall!  August, in addition to being swelteringly hot, was desert-like dry.  We recorded 0.0 inches of precipitation in August.  The biggest rainfall we got was back in January, when we gladly accepted 8.9 inches.  In a weird thing we always record, you'll see that it NEVER rained on the 18th or the 19th day of any month in 2023.

Below is a summary, by month, showing rainfall.  The year was extraordinarily dry resulting in grass that did not grow, animals in poor condition and garden yields down.

The table below shows the trendline, based on a compilation of 11 years of data collected on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  The record annual rainfall in that period was 2017, when we received 79.9 inches.  The low annual rainfall record was set this year, with only 45.36 inches.  The 11 year average rainfall was 64.03 inches.  This means this year we were about 19 inches below the average.  Yep, a dry year.

We already talked about the driest and wettest months of 2023.  For a 11 year average, however, the wettest month has been May and the driest month has been March.  Just some interesting, albeit nerdy stuff we track.  We pray that the rainfall returns back into the normal range for 2024.

2019 Rainfall By the Numbers

Each year we track certain things like rainfall.  In early January we sum up the totals and calculate rainfall here at our little family farm.  We have a rain gauge out by the garden right next to the cow's water trough.  Every day after a rain I dump the water out and record the precipitation on a paper log in the utility room.

Here are the statistics from 2019.  As you can tell, March was the month in 2019 that had the least amount of rainfall with 1.1 inches and May was the month in 2019 with the most rainfall at 12.05 inches.  For the year we had a total of 64.6 inches of rain.  If you do a search to see the average rainfall in our zip code, it shows 60.35 inches.  We are once again over the average rainfall for 2019.

Why do we do this?  I guess curiosity.  But I also like to see trends.  We began tracking rain back in 2013, so we have seven years of data.  From this data we gather some neat information.

First, our average rainfall at our farm is almost 68 inches or 5.66 feet over the past seven years.  The highest rainfall totals were from back in 2017 with 79.9 inches and the lowest in 2012 with 58.15 inches.  It is kind of neat to see that over the last seven years, we have gotten right at 40 feet of rainfall.  That's a lot of water!

In 2019, the month with the lowest rainfall was March at 1.1 inches in total and the highest was May with 12.05 inches in total.  Over the last seven years, the driest month has been March, averaging 3.03 inches, and the wettest has been August, averaging 9.67 inches of rainfall.  Torrential rains in August 2016 leaving almost 26 inches of rain on the ground, skews the data though.

One other thing to see that was interesting is that there were three days of the month FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR that it never rained.  It never rained a drop on the first day of every month, the 9th day and the 11th day.  Meaningless information, I know, but it is fun to track and see. 

We're already tracking rainfall for 2020 and on the 23rd day of the month, we've already surpassed every year except 2013 in rainfall total and still have a week to go!

2017 Rainfall - By The Numbers

Yesterday we talked about tracking egg production in 2017 from our flock of happy hens.  Today we look at 2017 annual rainfall.  We have a rain gauge nailed to the top of a fence post right by the cows' water trough.  I check it each day after a rain event and I record the rainfall amount in a matrix we have printed and conveniently located on the deep freeze in the utility room so that we can keep it updated.

We like to do this just because we're curious.  It also is interesting to see trends by comparing previous years and being able to see typical dry months and typical wet, soggy months.  So let's take a look.  The information below merely represents the sum of each month's rainfall in 2017:

The above shows that you can't get much drier than September was.  But at the same time, it rained enough in August for both months!

The table below compiles rainfall amounts by month and year over the previous 5 year history since we've been recording the wet stuff.

According to the Internet, Jennings, Louisiana has an average rainfall total of 60.35 inches.  However, other than 2015, we have exceeded that figure.  2016 and 2017 rainfall totals were pretty close and rain totals seem to be trending upward.  Our actual rainfall total over the previous 5 years is 69.15 inches.  Also, according to our records August is our wettest month and September is our driest month.  This is all very good information and we find it useful in planning for the timing of gardening and also lets us know when we need to keep our rubber boots handy!