OCEAN BEACH, CA. Using my trusty rain gauge, attached to my backyard fence, I just measured .95 inches of rain since 9 am this morning. And it’s now 1 pm.
That’s an inch in just a four hour period. According to the graph below, that’s half of the average February total in just 4 hours. Ocean Beach is one mile square. If this rainwater had been captured, how much would that be? None of it was captured, sadly, except for what fell into the few buckets and plastic containers in my yard. Did you have your buckets and barrels ready for today’s predicted rain?
We live in a desert. We need to capture our rainwater.
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Okay, check my math someone. But here goes:
1 mile is 63,360 inches. OB is one mile square, so that’s about 4 Billion square inches. If each square inch in OB received 1 inch of rain, that’s 4 Billion cubic inches of water. Water is measured in acre feet – the amount of water over 1 acre and with 1 foot of depth. 1 acre foot = 75 million cubic inches. So divide 4 Billion cubic inches by that and I believe you get 53.33 acre feet. Can you imagine 53 and a third acres of water with 1 foot of depth falling over OB in 4 hours? And nothing was captured, like you said.
dang, i left my sprinkers on again.
Gee r hoobler, do you know a r hoover who posted awhile ago?
Okay Joe, here’s my take on the whole deal….. The OB Planning Board says OB is 742 acres (an area measurement). If it rained 12″ (1 foot), that would be 742 acre feet (a volume measurement), so 1″ of rain is 1/12 of 742 acre feet, or 61.83 acre feet of water. So, almost 62 acres would be covered by a foot of water. 62 acres is about the same amount of land that would be encompassed by starting at the corner of Newport and Abbott, walking up Newport, left on Cable, then left on Muir, left on Abbott and back to Newport.
One acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, so 62 acre feet is about 20,202,789 gallons! According to the San Diego County Water Authority, an acre-foot of water can supply the household needs of two four-person families for one year, so 62 acre feet could supply 124 families for a year. I wonder if that is before or during rationing….?
See Patty’s new post “Roll Out the Barrels” from the 16th.
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