gardenfish said:Such a wonderful thing! And very environmentally sound. We should do these here; we do have an enormous amount of rain runoff; and in agricultural areas run off from fields invariably contains high nitrogen fertilizers; once these go into the creeks, streams, rivers and lakes they cause algal booms that deplete the oxygen and kill the fish.
That's what caused all the brouhaha about that hog farm that was placed on Big Creek in Northern Arkansas. Big Creek goes directly into the Buffalo River, our first National River. It took 7 years, I think, to finally close that hog farm down. Adding to the issues was the fact of the sub strata up there; it's limestone karst; and absorbs water readily and carries the excess nutrients and pollutants into the underground aquifers.

The one limiter to them (besides size...keep in mind I have have almost 300 cubic feet of dry well...the first almost 200 was technically enough to handle my yard, but I didn't realize why it was still flooding before installing the last ~100 cubic feet...to handle a well-designed 1500 square foot exterior space plus 600 square foot roof) is that they're less effective where the water table is high and/or the soil has low absorption rates. DC's clay soil isn't ideal for dry wells, but they work for me because I'm on high ground (I can see the Washington Monument from over 3 miles away in a direct line because I'm over 100 feet above its base), so the ground actually drains out pretty fast. The amount of holding that a farm would need would be astronomical, and if the water table is high (next to a river, it usually is), they would need to be even bigger. Otherwise they just overflow and it's like you never spent the money. They're much better for household drainage solutions. There are tank-style solutions (literally a tank installed in the ground with french drains capturing surface water and directing it in) for larger areas, but they're really expensive and take even longer to drain because you displace more soil that would otherwise be uptaking the water.

ETA: I installed the metal edging yesterday. I now have a 3.5-4.5" buffer from water running in from the neighbor's downspout. There's some natural runoff that occurs because the back half of their yard is a smidgen higher than mine, but what hits their lawn (cough weeds) and upwards walkway was nowhere near enough to cause the kind of flooding I was seeing.

Crazy hot today, rained all week.

Low 80s, very sunny.

Low 90s, but not much humidity. Now a 90% chance of rain on Monday. Not due to the tropical storm, but a front moving in.

Low 90s here also and high humidity. Doesn't take long to be sweat soaked.

Well, for me, any weather where it gets above 80 causes me to sweat, specially if I'm doing vigorous work! The humidity just makes it worse. Supposed to be 96 today, so I have to get my garden work done very early. It's 2:30 am and it's 72 right now. Accu weather says it will be 90 by 11:00 am!

Under a severe storm watch but so far nothing has developed. It will happen though.

We might be, too for all I know. I haven't seen a weather forecast since early this morning.

I watched the weather last night but not this morning so not exactly sure how bad it will be but so far it's lining up with what was said then. Find out in a bit.

It's sort of overcast today.

Still beautiful, but it will get progressively cloudier and more humid. Then rain starting Saturday, and good chances all next week.

We had a quick rain last night, not enough to wet the ground and the weather people didn't forecast it.

Dry today but storms in the morning, sunshine later, severe storms tomorrow night.

It started getting cloudy yesterday evening. That's ok, because if it stays cloudy at least that's some relief as the temps and humidity rise. Supposed to be pretty miserable the next two days and then the rain starts plus a relative cool down. Another weird summer. Here we are coming on the 4th, and it's likely to be raining! Usually it's dry to the bone on the 4th. I can remember many years there was already a burning ban by this time of the year, and fireworks were prohibited, not that anyone paid attention to that, and not that law enforcement tried to enforce the ban. They have their hands full on the holiday with drunkenness, fights and car accidents.
I sure wouldn't want to be a police officer on holidays, nor a health worker at a hospital, specially in the ER!
One 4th I fell off a neighbors deck while at his swimming pool; I was pretty sure I busted some ribs.
I waited to go to the ER until 4:00 am because I knew ER would be full of gunshot wounds, knife wounds, heart attacks and kids who had burned themselves with fireworks. When I did go they x rayed me and then sent me home! They don't wrap cracked ribs nowadays. ( I had 3 cracked ones). At least they gave me a stay at home pass from work for 3 days. Not even a prescription for pain, which was pretty severe.

In the 80s today and cloudy all day.

It reached 89 yesterday and partly cloudy. A really nice summer day. Supposed to be great for the 4th! High of 84 to 86. Almost unheard of. It's normally in the high 90s with a humidity level of around 80%, a wet rag day.

Rain off and on thru Thur then dry and low 80s. No complaints.

Flood emergency once again here in Chicago.

Oh, my! Hoping you don't get flooded out.
Nervioral!

We just got a quick almost .6" (we got a little light rain earlier and I didn't check the gauge after that round, but it only lasted for 10 minutes and was only moderate, so I highly doubt it was more than a T), and MY YARD ISN'T FLOODED! I'm clearly getting some water coming in from the "bad" neighbor as it seeps into the ground (that side of the flowerbed is "softer" right now than the other side), but not the absolute rush of water I was getting before. Finally, FINALLY, my dry wells can do what they were built to do, and prevent my yard from flooding from the water coming off my own property and *natural* topographical runoff!