The Superior Express -

Even though spring isn’t officially here until Saturday, it seems safe to say winter is over. (We’re not sure of the snow and cold, but the calendar does say winter is over on Saturday.)

It was quite some winter. It arrived in its usual form, a cool November, a cold December and a “very cold and snowy” January and February. However, we’ve had several weeks now of very mild conditions that slowly melted the ice and snow and last weekend we experienced our first prolonged rain event of the year.

The most common aspect of the whole of the last four and one-half months, however, has been how dry it has been.

The rain received over the past weekend doubled or even tripled rainfall totals of the first two and one-half months of 2021. We visited the Little Blue NRD information site this weekend to bring facts concerning the weekend rains.

Following are NRD reporting sites with figures showing moisture totals from January 1 to March 11, followed by totals of the rain from March 11 to Tuesday, March 16 which will be in brackets ( ).

Hastings, 1.0 ESE: 2.86 (7.01)

Blue Hill, 1.22 NE: 1.68 (4.94)

Lawrence, 6.7 SSE: N R (3.58)

Lawrence, village: 1.91 (3.99)

Nelson, town: 0.49 (3.39)

Nora, village: 2.16 (3.22)

Oak, village: N R (3.10)

Superior, 6.5 NE: 1.60 (2.58)

Guide Rock: village: 1.99 (2.95)

Superior, 8.4 NW: 1.79 (2.91)

Red Cloud, 4.3 E: 1.62 (2.79)

The “N R” for several sites indicates no reports for the early part of the year.

While much of the rain was a much desired ‘slow and steady’ rain, there was enough heavy rain for officials to issue a flood warning for folks around the Little Blue River. Many farm ponds are no longer dry. If this type of rain came in June or July, it would be called a “million dollar” rain.

Interestingly enough, authorities stopped all west bound vehicles on the Interstate Highway at Kearney because of the snow fall out west especially in Wyoming and Colorado.