I probably don't have to report on last night's rain, as many Carlin residents are at the lake now in the summer to have seen it first-hand. But, it is fun to tell about a rainfall of almost 2" (1.8" at Farwells; 1.7" by Gail Speer). It got black and windy, and the rain pelted down, but we missed the big storms that we were hearing about on the weather radio.
Newspaper articles remind us that even with the recent rains, (3" in May; 8" in June; and 6" so far in July) we are still experiencing serious drought conditions. The National Weather Service still calls these 8 years of drought the worst on historical record, even worse than the Dust Bowl years in the middle 1930's. Historical records show a 14" rain deficit during those years, compared to the 30+ inch rain deficit now.
Tim Kratz, colleague of Carl Watras at the Trout Lake Station, points out that we are missing more than a year's cumulative worth of precipitation. So, let it keep raining (at night, like Camelot!) because we still need a lot.
John Bates tells in a recent column that lakes just like ours are going to be the slowest to rebound. First, Carlin is a seepage lake, so it depends totally on precipitation and groundwater to fill the lake, and of course, with the drought, groundwater levels are extremely low and will be slow to fill again.
And, second, our lake is high in the landscape. (Carlin Lake is 1642 feet elevation, and Van Vliet, Papoose, and Presque Isle are all ten feet lower at 1632 feet elevation. Big Lake, not too far from us, is 1613 feet.) Since groundwater flows downhill, lakes at high elevations like ours receive less groundwater compared to lower lakes, which benefit from water draining downhill into their basins.
(It must be something like waiting for a bathtub to fill up to the "high parts" on your body--it takes a while for it to get there, especially if some of it keeps spilling out into a lower drain.)