LAGRANGE, Ind. — Driving through the countryside this week, I noticed an irrigation system running in a friend’s field. The field is only 3 miles from my home and I was a bit surprised. After all, I had well over an inch of rain just days before. Later, I learned he had less than 2 tenths of an inch from the same storm, and was irrigating to activate the herbicides that were recently applied.
Curious, I checked the National Weather Service to see what they recorded for that storm system. Their records indicated only 0.14 inch of rain near South Bend, 0.09 in Syracuse and 1.56 near Fort Wayne. That is quite a range for a storm, that on radar, looked like it was distributing rain fairly equitably.
It fascinates how much variation there is from one rain gauge to another, even those gauges within a mile can be quite different. James Newman, a long-retired Purdue weatherman, once told me there is only a 60 percent correlation between gauges 1 mile apart in this part of Indiana. What that tells me is, you cannot rely on data from the stations that are miles away. You need to know what’s going on in your backyard.
Think about that! If you are comparing rain gauges that are a mere 2 miles apart, the correlation is only 36 percent (60 percent of 60 percent). Just hearing people talk about their rainfall totals and seeing the wide differences over a small geographic area, I am more convinced than ever that farmers, gardeners and others who depend on accurate rainfall data need to have their own rain gauges. If you farm or irrigate hundreds or thousands of acres spread over miles, you definitely would benefit from rain gauges near each site.
As if to emphasize the point, there are seed corn companies offering automated weather stations as customer reward incentives. These systems can transmit their data to a website or a phone, where it can be viewed from miles away. With the ability to turn sprinkler systems on or off from your smart phone, it is not difficult to see the benefits of such technology.
As for those with small farms, gardens and lawns, there is still great benefit of knowing what’s happening on your site. I would think that a $5 to $10 rain gauge might save a person money and time if they knew last night’s storm delivered just the right amount of water to your place.
If you are a serious weather nerd, you might enjoy CoCoRaHS, a community-based network of volunteers who measure and map precipitation. CoCoRaHS is an acronym for the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. We have six people in LaGrange County who routinely report their data, and I am sure they would welcome more help, especially on the west side of the county. You can see local rainfall maps, pictures of the awesome rain gauges they use, and instructions to join the network at https://www.cocorahs.org/.
— Jeff Burbrink, Extension Educator – Ag & Natural Resources, Purdue Extension – LaGrange County
