It's raining! It's raining!

You talk sense, farmer. A huge amount of the rain simply disappears. Come & talk to our state (of Victoria) leaders, who talk of super expensive desalination plants & pipelines taking water from the country to the city .... & the cost of water going through the ceiling in a few years time.
Hmmm, artificial recharge. Sounds an excellent idea. What's a "porous parking lot", I'd like to know?

Still raining in Adelaide, Deb?

Off and on!!!!

A porous parking lot was a thingy they developed in Germany during WWII, and its since been embettered and embiggened. We use larger stone in parking lots and we lay them with a double or triple layer of different diameter stone, and the stone has less macadam between so that it will let water soak through. The only problem is that, with seasons, the parking lots get leaves and **** that can clog up the pores and they need to be power washed periodically. Weve even created "parking lot power washers where a great stream of spray water is shot at the crevises through a covered head on a tractor loader. This is hooked up to a water truck that is along side. The power washer just goes up and down the parking lot and cleans out the clogging leaves and stuff. Then someone comes along behind with a tractor that has a "wet vacuum' It takes about 2 days to really clean a big shopping center parking lot. Its funny that we use these things more in the humid regions than we do in desert regions where every drop of rain is precious.

I masde a mistake in my calculation above. 6" of extra recharge is about 300000 gal per acre, not 1.8 million, I had my number in acre feet not acre inches.
We do a lot of stupid things anyway.

This is for real, right, farmer?

Because it sounds brilliant!

When you say "we", you mean?

I get quite thingy about people paving every bit of city & suburban earth around their homes. And removing all the trees in all the new mega development areas, too. (My city is growing like topsy! Unbelievable, given the fast dwindling water supply. Drives me crazy.)

Thats the point of porous parking lots (PPL's), they almost return the raped land to its natural infiltration rate. (Actually, in some areas, aPPL will improve the natural infiltration).
Weve suffered the growth limit definition in cities like Las Vegas where we waste water so much and yet its a fuckin DESERT for chrise sake. The fountains that essentially spray a stream of water that evaporates as it goes up is ridiculous. Meanwhile, Atlantic City, which is right on the water , is turning into a ghost town.

"we" is a collective. My company (my desiign guys) have designed all kinds of infiltration galleries, porous pavements, and rain gardens for infiltration and conservation. I just hear about em at our tech review sessions.

That's terrific, farmer. (The PPLs)
I wish I could get your design guys to work on my yard. Hard, clayey soil. Almost rock-like after years of drought. All that rain out there right now mostly going to waste! I wish they'd have a chat with the developers who are building & concreting & paving like crazy in the mega development areas, too. Nuts. Totally nuts!

Oops, I missed you, Deb. Just saw your post now.

The rain & wind moved in here only last night. I hate the cold (I have two jumpers & bulky socks on! Ha.) but I hope we get heaps of rain over the next few days! More, more!

Apart from anything else, things look cleaner, brighter, after all that dust from the past weeks has been washed away. I even have a clean car! (No car washing allowed for yonks, of course.)

Hi msolga. Thanks for the Welcome.
I used to come by years ago but I can't remember my username back then.
I stopped by yesterday & it had all changed.
I'm in the Northern Suburbs of Melbourne.
We had a little more rain today.
More predicted for tomorrow.

You can't remember your old username, Kat? What are ya?

I'm inner-north. It looks like the eastern suburbs got most of the rain today & last night. But was it cold!!! It was freezing today!!

Hang on!
I spoke too soon! Big downpour, just starting now!!

I only ever posted once or twice, so who knows what name I used. LOL
It's still cold & it's still raining here too.
Going to be colder tomorrow. Eeek!!!!
I don't like the cold. LOL

I love hearing about the rain and the recharge that it represwents. Will this finally put our the fires down in NSW

Make sure you write down your current username somewhere, OK? For next time.

I hate hate hate the cold! And it doesn't help that my cat becomes completely hysterical & goes beserk when I turn on the ducted heating. (Really) Oh the dread at the thought of another 3-jumpers-on winter!

Farmer, my dear, the big fires were in Victoria .. where dadpad, Kat & I live.
NSW & Queensland had floods while country Victoria was burning. (What a bloody stupid country!!!!)

my bad

Nah. I guess we all look pretty much the same from the northern hemisphere!

sydney here, olga you are a rock, umm oops

Sydney? Really?
Well, I'll be ....!
I was certain you were a northern hemispherian, solipsiter!

Thank you for calling me a rock. Nicest thing anyone's called me today!

Hi Everyone

We had the coldest night here last night for over 50 years.
It was 1.2 Celcius where I live!
Thankfully it's going to be a bit warmer tonight!