August 19, 2006

It just started to rain as we pulled away. It didn't amount to much. I'm a terrible guess on how much rain we got, but I'd guess a fraction of an inch. Maybe a 10th of an inch?

Every time we seriously water the lawn, we use about 1,000 gallons of water. It usually takes all day to do that. Whenever it rains, I notice the lawn doing so much better than how it responds to watering. Then I found out what an inch of rain actually produces.

I think we have something close to a half acre. It's somewhere like 17,000 square feet.

So, 17,000 square feet X 144 square inches per square foot = 2,448,000 square inches

2,448,000 square inches X 1 cubic inch of rain = 2,448,000 cubic inches of rain.

1 cubic foot of water = 7.48052 gallons ÷ 1728 cubic inches per cubic foot = 0.004329005 gallons per cubic inch of rain.

2,448,000 cubic inches of rain X 0.004329005 gallons per cubic inch of rain = 10,597 gallons of water per inch of rain.

If we really got a 10th of an inch of rain, it was like watering all day long.