Here are some interesting statistics regarding our record-breaking late October rain event in the Mid-South. Bowling Green is used as the station of record for all statistics.
This is the first four-day rain event with more than 0.20″ each day since July 3-6 2004.
This is the first three-day rain event with more than 0.45″ each day since April 30 – May 2, 2004.
This is only the second time in 111 years to have back to back days with more than 3″ each day. The last time this happened was May 6-7, 1984.
This is the first day with at least 3.29″ since August 30, 2005. (Remnants of Hurricane Katrina)
October 2007 is now the rainiest October ever in Bowling Green history with 8.29 inches, breaking the previous record of 7.88″ in 1925.
While Jan-Sep 2007 ranked as the driest ever Jan-Sep period in 111 years (22.55″), the period from Jan-Oct 2007 now ranks only 11th.
An acre-inch is equal to 27,154 gallons of water. Therefore, since there was about seven inches of rain from this storm across the county, about 190,000 gallons of water fell on every acre in the county. My household uses about 50,000 gallons of water per year, therefore, if I were able to capture all of this weeks rainfall it would supply my needs for four years.
More realistically, if I were able to capture the water from my 1500 sq. ft. roof (0.03 acres) in a cistern, I would have captured 6500 gallons of water, or enough water for 50 days.
Since there are 545 sq. miles in Warren County, and there are 640 acres in a sq. mile, then a total of 66 billion galllons of rain fell on Warren County this week.
Since Barren River Lake is about 10,000 acres, a total of 1.9 billion gallons of rain fell directly into the reservoir (this doesn’t include any runoff from streams and rivers). Since BGMU treats about 16 million gallons of water per day during the fall, this is enough rainfall to supply the needs of BGMU for 118 days.
