Friday, February 27, 2009

Rain in Winter

Winter has been running hot and cold lately. Well, more like cold, very cold, and not really so cold. Today fell into the "not really so cold" category, though I was in work for most of it. When I took my lunch at 4:00 PM (it was one of those days; I had last eaten at 3:30 in the morning, and would be leaving work at 6:00) I was a little surprised and disappointed to see that the day had turned dark and rainy. Not that I will miss the snow that has finally been washed away, but I was looking forward to seeing Venus and the Moon tonight.

While searching for a picture to put on yesterday's Venus/Moon post, I was a little surprised to see how much snow we had on the ground on March 20, 2007. But this is not that unusual. Here are images from a snowstorm on March 24, 2005. I don't think we had March snow in 2006 or last year, and I didn't start my blog until May 2004 so I don't know offhand what the day-to-day weather was like.

The rain concerns me, though. One of the big purchases I'm trying to save up for is a few truckloads of dirt - topsoil, maybe even - to pile around the foundations of my mom's house and help direct rainfall and surface water away from our basement. Basement flooding from groundwater seepage has been a major concern in past years, and I expect it will be an issue sooner or later this year.

3 comments:

Todd HellsKitchen said...

We're supposed to get 8" of snow over the weekend. I'm all FOR it!

whimsical brainpan said...

Snow in March isn't uncommon here either (not that we get the amount of snow that you do).

Isn't there a better way to waterproof your Mom's basement?

D.B. Echo said...

Whim, there are better ways, but they are much more expensive. Making sure that the ground slopes away from your foundation is fundamental to having the rain flow away from your basement, rather than towards it. Over the years the soil around the foundation has worn away a bit, so it could use some topping off. It won't solve the problem, but it will diminish its severity.