Rainfall and Lil Girls

[Jogeephus]

We have been hammered by rain. My daughter and I were out to yesterday and I commented that the rain gauge had almost 5 inches of rain in it. Of course, she wants to know how many gallons of water this equates to and she wouldn't settle for the typical answer - a bunch - so we sat down to do some figuring. This is what we have come up with and I thought it was interesting and thought ya'll might find it interesting as well. (feel free to correct my math as I road the short bus)

Given a cubic foot of water equals 7.481 gallons and an inch of rain is 1/12 of a foot, this equates to 27,156 gallons of water for each inch of rainfall. So with our 5 inches of rain, we have received 135,780 gallons of rain on each acre. :shock:

Assuming some tanker trucks can hold 11,887 gallons, this equates to having roughly 11.4 tanker trucks delivering water to each acre of land. :shock:

This is also like having someone dump 1.4 15x30 foot swimming pools on your property for each inch you receive so we received seven swimming pools worth of rain.

Assuming a gallon weighs 8.34 lbs, then each inch of rainfall equates to 226,481 lbs of the wet stuff. With our 5 inches, we have received 1,132,405 lbs of water on each acre. :shock:

The next question she asked was why the rain gauge is narrower at the bottom than it is at the top. I told her "just because". Rainfall and lil girls - you got to love them both. :nod:

 

[angie1]

Hey ~ thats really neat, and fun to read!
Thats a lots of water :shock:
Good for you for figuring it out, I wouldn't have known where to start.
Thanks for sharing :tiphat:



btw ~ why is the rain guage narrower at the bottom than it is at the top?

 

[Jogeephus]

btw ~ why is the rain guage narrower at the bottom than it is at the top?

Just because. :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: I don't really know. My guess is so you can read the trace amounts on the gauge but I honestly don't know.

 

[L.A.]

btw ~ why is the rain guage narrower at the bottom than it is at the top?

The gauge is calibrated from the size of the top. The diameter of the top determines the area from which rain is collected, then calibrated to measure the amount in inches. The larger the diameter of the top the larger the area rain is collected from. ;-)

 

[bigbull338]

dont ya just love the qs lil kids ask.an all to put us on the spot.so we would have to answer them.she is a pretty smart lil girl.

 

[CUZ]

Thanks Jo, I'd wondered every now and then how much water it took to put an inch of rain on an acre. Of course that only happened when I was standing out in the field, by the time I got inside that thought had vanished back into the recesses.

Here's one for your little girl. - If you drive 60 miles an hour, that equals 1 mile every minute. So if you have 2 minutes to drive 2 miles, but you only drive 30 miles an hour for the first mile, how fast do you have to drive the second mile?

Answer - you can't because your 2 minutes are up. Most kids will jump in and say 90 mph for the second mile.

Have a good'un.

 

[mnmtranching]

Interesting stuff Joe 8) Up here one good June thundershower, will drop more precipitation in a couple hours then the total amount of water in a whole Winters supply of snow. :welcome:

 

[1982vett]

Given a cubic foot of water equals 7.481 gallons and an inch of rain is 1/12 of a foot, this equates to 27,156 gallons of water for each inch of rainfall. So with our 5 inches of rain, we have received 135,780 gallons of rain on each acre.

To put a $ value on an inch of rain. If 1 inch has 27156 gallons, using the standard 55 US gallon barrell, an inch of rain would be 493.75 barrels.

Last year an oil company paid me 10 cents a barrel for water to frac a well. That would make an inch of rain per acre worth $49.38. 5 inches would be worth $246.90/acre.

How would you like that for a water bill?

 

[dun]

I lesson I learned is to never tell them a weed is just a flower in the wrong place.

 

[Jogeephus]

Here's one for your little girl. - If you drive 60 miles an hour, that equals 1 mile every minute. So if you have 2 minutes to drive 2 miles, but you only drive 30 miles an hour for the first mile, how fast do you have to drive the second mile?

Answer - you can't because your 2 minutes are up. Most kids will jump in and say 90 mph for the second mile.

Thanks. I asked her and I could see the wheels begin to turn in that lil 10 year old head - within 15 seconds she popped out the correct answer. I won't tell you the anwer I came up with but suffice it to say there is still a seat for me on the short bus.

mnmtranching wrote

one good June thundershower, will drop more precipitation in a couple hours then the total amount of water in a whole Winters supply of snow

Speaking of snow. How much rainfall does say 4 inches of snow equate to? Always wondered about that.

1982vet wrote

How would you like that for a water bill?

That would hurt. I think these figures demonstrate why watering a garden just doesn't pay off like a rain. I think most spigots have a flow of about 12 gallons a minute so this would take a garden hose with a sprinkler approximately 37.7 hours to produce enough water to put one inch on a 1 acre garden. Of course most gardens are much smaller. Even so, a 10th acre garden would take 3.8 hours.

 

[dun]

AN inch of snow is generally considred a tenth of an inch of precip. When you melt it down sometimes it's a little more, sometimes a little less, but 1/10 per inch seems to work out pretty well

 

[Jogeephus]

Thanks Dun, I've always wondered what it would be. Of course I haven't seen snow in years but maybe one day.

 

[larryshoat]

Thanks Jo, thats neat , She thinks her dad is the smartest man in the world and if she were here I would tell her she is absolutely right .

Larry

 

[Jogeephus]

Thanks Jo, thats neat , She thinks her dad is the smartest man in the world and if she were here I would tell her she is absolutely right .

Larry

Thanks Larry. In six years I'm afraid she'll just think I'm a dumb ol buzzard that "don't know anything". :lol2: I wish they didn't have to grow up. But I think she is going to be OK - she wants to be an astronaut.