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Shows E. Hawaii in severe drought. I've never seen this designation before applied to our area.
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMa...or.aspx?HI
Not good, unless you're inclined to do some bulldozing. Now would be the time.
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This is so not good.
I came here to get away from deserts, etc.
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I went outside and checked my drought gauge, formerly my rain gauge.
Yep, zero.
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Yeah, my catchment is only 1/3 full. I was starting to wonder if my leaf filter was blocking water flow...
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I don't think there's been an "Indian Summer" that has ever stretched this long in Puna at this time of year. So dry and hotter here than I can ever remember. Been here since 1980.
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We have a lot of livestock that depend on water and it's been so long since we've received any precipitation we were wondering if we had to do more than "if it's yellow let it mellow" so out of concern our 10,000 gallon tank might be nearly empty I took off enough of the cover to take a look.......
A lot of neighbors have been complaining about empty catchment tanks and long waits for a water truck. And watering all our goats, sheep, donkeys, chickens, turkeys, geese, etc (including geese kiddie pools) for sure our tank must be nearly dry. Plus with all the dishwasher use from goat milking supplies, frequent showers, plus a load of laundry every day......
Even our dogs have their own kiddie pool to cool off and we keep the water fresh so they don't get gross....
And to my surprise, the tank is still almost full!
I'm not even sure how it's possible because if we were getting unnoticed rain showers all the vegetation on our property wouldn't be all wilted and dying. We're having to feed the sheep and goats hay because the grass quit growing.
The only thing I can think of is our house is low-flow everything. Toilets, showerheads, dishwasher, clothes washer, etc. We don't do a lot of conscious things regarding conservation other than having newer appliances and making sure there aren't any leaks in our system.
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I was also pleasantly surprised when we checked ours, now 2/3 full. Everything got filled after that one good rain a couple week ago. We have gutters on both house and carport so when it does rain, we collect a lot of water. Hoping for more soon for everyone's sake.
Certainty will be the death of us.
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10-13-2022, 03:00 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-13-2022, 03:01 AM by terracore.)
(10-13-2022, 02:21 AM)kalianna Wrote: I was also pleasantly surprised when we checked ours, now 2/3 full. Everything got filled after that one good rain a couple week ago. We have gutters on both house and carport so when it does rain, we collect a lot of water. Hoping for more soon for everyone's sake.
Definitely everybody should be paying attention to their gutters. I got up on the ladder a few weeks ago and was very surprised how clogged the downspout screens were. I cleaned them all out so if we get a thunderstorm we'll have less water overflowing the gutters and going into the tank.
Even a little bit of junk in the gutters will result in less water harvesting (and gross water harvesting) even if using screens.