Rainy Day

It is a rainy day, so I can post "early" today.  I have worked 19 days in May so far.  Many of them were rainy days somewhere.  My secret National Weather Service (NWS).  NWS website has some wonderful tools for spot information.  First off you can click on the map and get a forecast for anywhere.  Our territory squared up is about 1000 square miles.  You can imagine different forecasts in different places. 

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is check the radar.  If it has rained then I click on storm total to see how much and where.  This feature is sometime erased fairly quickly, so I try another source.  There is a precipitation analysis tab that shows you a map of rainfall totals for just about any time period you choose.  It is pretty accurate.  From time to time I have posted those maps here to keep you up to date on departures from "normal". 

If you don't trust the data because it is radar derived, you can always look at the the observations.  scroll down and find the map.  You can click on any station and get actual rainfall data.  It is sort of a pain because the hourly totals are not summarized for a day, but it gets you actual measurements.  There is lots of information and data on NWS site that is free.  This is a taxpayer expense that seems worthwhile.