The rain measurement station in Conway had probably about dried out by Monday — an unusual state for the instrument after what seems like constant rain in recent weeks.
According to the National Weather Service, Conway’s rain gauge has logged 60.44 inches this year, which with two months to go is well above the city’s average yearly rainfall of 48.51 inches.
Will this year best 1957, the city’s rainiest year on record with 73.16 inches passing through the rain gauge? According to National Weather Service figures, November and December will have to be above average to set a new record.
Some of the people who are most impacted by rain are the county’s farmers, most of whom operate in the Lollie Bottoms, where water has been a problem for the past several years.
Lollie Bottoms farmer Bob Schaefers was trying to cut a few bales worth of late-season hay Monday afternoon, and said the saturated ground and standing water were making tough work of it.
Schaefers said some crops were still underwater from last week’s heavy rain, and that water will need to drain off in the next few days for the crops to survive.
“The last three years it’s been real terrible on the river ... it’s hard to get a crop in, and it’s hard to get one out,” Schaefers said.
All the rain has meant a bad year for corn, Schaefers said, some of which farmers simply had to plow under and start fields again with soybeans, for which the rain has been a mixed blessing.
“We’ve really got the best crop of beans we’ve had,” he said.
All the water will also make a dent in the county’s road budget, County Judge Preston Scroggin said.
“I can guarantee you that the northern part of the county, like the Enders community, is probably looking at 85 inches this year,” Scroggin said. “Needless to say it is going to be a record overall. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
Scroggin said that his road crews can start getting water-damaged roads “patched up so we can get by” immediately, but “some of the permanent fixes won’t be (possible) until next summer.”
“When it’s all said and done,” Scroggin said, “I’d guess that we’ll be looking at about half a million to fix the damages.”
(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached at 505-1238 or by E-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit.)
Rainfall in Wooster
I have measured(and reported to the NWS), 70.80 inches of rain thru Oct 31,2009....Thats 32.26 inches above the normal for the Wooster/Greenbrier area. I don't know what the record is for this area, but surely we must be closing in on it.