4,000 gallons in 48 hours

We had less than 1" of rain between October 2012 and July 2013. But, now that July is here, the rain season has started, which means that it is Spring, here!

We received about 2.5" of rain in the last 48 hours. The rainwater cisterns are filling up! We caught 4,000 gallons during this period, which is enough to keep our garden watered for an entire year.

Here's our roof potential:
House Roof + tank roofs - ~1,000 gallons of water per inch of rain.
Barn + barn tank - 500 gallons of water per inch of rain.
Sheds and assorted tanks - 150 gallons per inch of rain.

TOTAL - 1650 gallons per inch of rain

For capacity, we have the following:
House cisterns - 14,500 gallons + new tank(7,000 gallons, under construction)
Barn Tank - 7,000 gallons
Shed tanks - 1,500 gallons
Swimming pool - 2,000 gallons

TOTAL - 32,000 gallons

So, we need about 20 inches of rain to fill everything, if they start empty.

BUT, our water accounts are about:
House Tanks - 6,000 gallons
Swimming pool - 1,000 gallons
Barn tank - 1,500 gallons
Shed tanks - 1,000 gallons

TOTAL - 9,500 gallons

So, our current capacity is 32,000 - 9,500 gallons - 22,500 gallons, which translates to about 14 inches of rain.

We typically receive about 25 inches per year, and I think we're now around 5 inches for this year (4 of that is this month). We can reasonably expect 20 inches of rain between now and the end of October.

Rainwater catchment information

we got another 2.7" of rain last night, which translates into another 4,400 gallons into our tanks. That's 8,400 gallons in 72 hours!

We have a bit of sunshine today, and the fog is clearing. The final count was 7" of rain in 72 hours, with over 11,000 gallons of water caught in our tanks. Needless to say, we are very happy, but we look forward to a few days of sunshine.

http://velacreations.com/blog/sunshine.html

That water is like money in the bank.Abe seems to enjoy this type of accounting.

Are you using swales and ponds to capture all that surface water ?

Do you ever pump short lived surface water to the cisterns in drier years ?

Dale Hodgins wrote:That water is like money in the bank.Abe seems to enjoy this type of accounting.

We are feeling really wealthy right now, and it's hard not to scream from the mountain tops. We have never had this much water on our property in the 13 years we've been living like this.

Are you using swales and ponds to capture all that surface water ?

yes, we have a lot of swales, and 2 ponds. The ponds are not completely full, yet, but they are getting there. Almost all of the swales overflowed with this much rain, and we have all of the overflow drain towards to the pond. Our soil is super saturated right now. Your footprints fill with water almost immediately.

Do you ever pump short lived surface water to the cisterns in drier years ?

no. Because of our clay soil, the surface water is very dirty. Even in dry years (we are still less than 1/3 of our average annual rainfall), we catch enough water for our needs. We prefer to keep the surface water in the soil and the ponds.