For our small patch of north Lindsborg, the rain gauge and the snow stick tell us that last year was dry. Annual rainfall since 2018 has averaged 34 inches; snowfall, 10 inches plus.
Last year, total rainfall was 18.9 inches, laced in the colder months with 11.8 inches of snow. We’re grateful even for that, but it’s roughly half of what was once normal.
January this year begins with promise ‒ 3/8 inch of rain on January 2, half an inch of wet snow on the 10th, and a ¾-inch rain on the 18th. We can use more but are grateful not to be walloped like California.
The figures are amateur readings from a gauge just north of our house and don’t pretend to reflect weather even in Salina or McPherson. On many a stormy night, Internet radar will show significant rain over the central state moving west to east, with splashes of heavy action running diagonally with the weather.
Over Lindsborg, nothing. A line of thunderstorms is often punctuated with a doughnut hole or horseshoe around Lindsborg ‒ more accurately, Coronado Heights. We call this the Coronado Heights Syndrome, a weather burp that seems to protect those near this historic outcrop north of town. Storms tend to avoid this mystic atmospheric roundabout, where clouds are directed this way and that, anywhere but here. It can rain an inch in Assaria, eight miles north, or an inch in Marquette eight miles west. But for our plot, a heavy mist if we’re lucky.
Lindsborg itself turns out the occasional mystery. We’ve seen the sky open up over downtown and pour rain in sheets at the Post Office while at home a half-mile north, nothing. It’s as though Coronado Heights had taken a nap, awakened suddenly with arms flailing, scattering storms this way and that, every way but our way. (Sometimes this is good.)
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Moisture is central to any talk of weather in Kansas. Last year the early months were stingy ‒ dry and windy, like the legislature. January began with a couple of early snows ‒ two inches on the 2nd and three on the 6th ‒ and a dusting on the 15th. In February, a couple of inches on the 2nd and a blast of bitter cold to end the month.
March last year picked up with nearly five inches of snow, four inches on the 6th and 0.8 inches on the 30th. In between, 1.2 inches of rain in four events ‒ a quarter inch on the17th and nearly an inch over a three-day string from the21st into the 23rd.
April threatened thirst: a couple of showers for a total 0.325 inches.
In May, relief. Rain came eight times for a total six inches, the showers well-spaced over 4½ weeks: 1.55 inches (three showers) in week one; nothing in week two; in week three, 0.85 inches in one shower (over night May 17-18); Overnight events May 23-25 brought 2.35 inches; another 1¼ inches overnight into May 31 ‒ more than enough for the wheat and enough for farmers to complain about muddy fields.
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In recent years May has been soggy ‒ in 2021, 6.27 inches (13 events); in 2020, 6.48 inches (9 events including more than four inches May 24-25); and in May 2019, nearly 11 inches of rain from ten events, plus a storm that pounded the area with 2½ inches of hail.
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Last year, May’s moisture continued into June. On the 4th, it rained 1.55 inches between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Next day, another 1.3 inches. Sprinkles and mild showers ‒ more than half an inch ‒ came in four more events. Total, 3.4 inches.
July and August brought heat and 3.7 inches of rain over six events, three in each month. September, less than an inch (0.975) from four showers. October brought only a quarter-inch of rain, overnight the 23rd.
November began moist with two overnight showers the 3rd and 4th for more than two inches, and 1/8-inch overnight into Nov. 27. Total, 2.15 inches, three events.
Last December, no real snow and not much rain: 0.8 inches on the 13th and 1/8 inch overnight into the 19th.
We ended the year with no snow on Christmas and (but for May) not much rain. It was dry but not drastic. And to those who might complain, have a look at California, where ceaseless torrents are measured in feet, not inches.
