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Rainfall Records a Continuing Source of Interest

(Blanco County News, July 2005)

As Blanco suffered through June with no rainfall, the Rainfall Records wall at Real Foods Market became a topic of interest.

Was it really the driest June on record?

According to the totals for each June from 1900 to 1999, there have actually been three Junes with no rain: 1900, 1934, and 2005. Calculations based on the rainfall record show the average June rainfall to be 3.85" and the January-through-June average to be 19.52". We are currently at 13.59" for that six-month period. Thus, we are experiencing the 35th driest six months since 1900.

A trip to Real Foods could yield the weather buff many interesting weather facts.

As to the reason for the clarity of the numbers on the board, which is hung on the left wall as one enters the store, manager Sherri Stockman explains that the numbers indicating rainfall totals for each month were painstakingly written with India ink, using brass stencils, which are now in the possession of Jackie Bamberger, wife of building owner Doug Bamberger.

Their plan is to resume displaying the data, which was recorded from 1900 through mid 1999. The boards were carefully removed when the store was recently painted and then carefully re-installed for the edification of customers.

Longtime weather observer and record-keeper Roy Byars explains the interesting history of the boards.

A gentleman named Col. Forsyth who retired to Blanco in the first quarter of the last century complained that local residents were rather unscientific in their description of a rainfall that “came up to here” on a certain tree. After Byars sponsored Forsyth for membership in the Blanco Lions Club, Forsyth offered to keep a record of rainfall if the Lions would provide the boards. They provided the boards, and he kept the data until he died.

Actually, Byars recounts that the first weather station was established in 1896 by Mr. R. C. Crist and Mr. Boone. After Mr. Boone gave it up, Mr. Crist continued collecting data, later passing on the job to his son, C. E. Crist, owner of the hardware store on the square, the present site of Real Foods.

However, Crist was a rather large man, according to Byars, who did little collection of data, relying instead on Byars’ brother Bill, who went to work at the store in 1933.

Two years later Roy Byars joined the staff of the store and began collecting weather data whenever Bill went fishing. When Bill died in 1970, Roy became the official weatherman.

Byars still keeps meticulous records of rainfall, using a rain gauge in his backyard. [editor's note: Mr. Byars passed away in August, 2006. His children plan to continue the tradition of keeping the Blanco rainfall records.]

In his living room is a sensor, which is connected to the thermometer in his backyard. Every day he records the temperature at 7:00 a.m. and the high and low temperatures for that 24-hour period.

He records the data in a little book and then fills out a monthly report, which he mails to the U. S. Weather Service. Weather trivia fascinates Byars, who carries a card in his wallet with interesting weather facts.

For example, the record high temperature of 110° occurred on September 8, 1937. The latest killing frost occurred April 30, 1908, and the earliest frost of the season occurred October 8, 1952. Thrall, Texas, received the greatest single rainfall, with 36. 40 inches. The longest stretch with no rain was 66 days, from September 18, 1922, till January 23, 1923. From July 27, 1951, to August 15,1951, the high temperature reached 100°.

The thing which fascinates and frustrates Byars, in his words, is the fact that “You cannot find a pattern. The weather is a new story every day, week, and month. There is no cycle or trend.”

The current dry spell is more frustrating than interesting for Blanco fire chief Frank Parker, however.

There were six grass fires in June, some of them planned burns which “just got out of control,” according to Parker. In July, there have already been five, four of them in the first four days of the month, two of them fireworks-related.

One was caused by a transformer blowing up, another was due to sparks from welding, and one was due to lightning hitting a tree in the recent storm in Johnson City. The Blanco County Commissioners are the ones who will decide if and when to institute a burn ban for the county.

With every day that passes without rain, the risk of fire increases as well.

Whether the data is collected and posted on a wall, on a sign, or on the internet, the desire to document and attempt to predict the weather is a fascinating, frustrating science.

By Priscilla Seals