Measurable Precipitation

Day 290: Years ago before I had internet access, I used to get my weather forecasts via NOAA's "Weather Radio." Reception here was rather poor, and it was not helped any by NOAA's upgrade to a computerized voice. I'm sure you remember those early synthesized voices: tinny, riddled with misplaced emphasis and clumsy pronunciation. NOAA's "announcer" had two in particular which took me forever to sort out because the misspoken phrases were so apt for our area. The first was "the rain forecast" which was followed by a forecast for Puget Sound and the Pacific Coast. Eventually, I realized that "the-rain" was supposed to be "ma-rine" by sorting it out in context. The second was even more hilarious. When a system was approaching, NOAA would give the percentage "chance of miserable precipitation" for the upcoming five days. As you might have figured out (and more quickly than I did!), "miserable" was "measurable." I bring this up today because we are having our first "miserable precipitation" for the month of July, a whole quarter inch so far, leaving plants, critters and firefighters much happier.