After two weeks without rain in central and southern Gwinnett county, rain finally came on Wednesday evening. I recorded 1.1 inches Wednesday night, and another .22 inches today. This is the first time since back on March 19th that we’ve gotten more than an inch of rainfall in a single day.

While the plants certainly appear to be enjoying the water, I was a little surprised at how little even that much rain has affected soil moisture. As you know, I have a soil moisture meter buried in the back yard about a foot below the ground. The values it reports ‘work in reverse’, in that the lower the number reported by the gauge, the wetter the soil. It only measures up to a value of 100 — I guess when it gets that high, things are pretty dire, and you need to provide water. Also, for technical reasons, if it gets to 100 and I restart the computer, it will show a value of 0.

Anyway for the last week or so, the gauge has been pegged at the maximum 100 value. After last night’s rainfall, the value dropped to 24, which would indicate about ‘normal’ to slightly wet soil moisture. As of now, and even with today’s rainfall, the gauge is back up to 57, which would be very dry.

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The first tropical storm that could pose a threat to the United States got a name yesterday, and her name is Bertha. With wind speeds of 50 MPH, she is moving north-northwest at about 18 MPH. While still located about 500 miles west of the Cape Verde islands, she is expected to approach the US sometime next week:

Bertha’s exact track will be determined by a high pressure ridge in the mid-Atlantic. While there is a possibility that the storm will curve north and miss the US coastline, there’s also the possibility that the storm could act more like Hurricane Bertha did back in 1996. That storm, also in July, passed over the Virgin Islands, and eventually made landfall in North Carolina, causing about $400 million worth of damage (in 2008 dollars).

While the first Bertha didn’t bring much rain to Georgia, depending on what the current one does, we could see some drought relief…or not. Stay tuned.