Let's play the monsoon game. Not the one that ponders whether we've recorded three successive days of dew points high enough to officially qualify for the term "monsoon," but the one that answers the more important questions:
Did it rain at your house? How much?
SAHRA, the University of Arizona-based water-policy think tank, can help you answer those questions with an e-mail data service tailored to your block, or as close as it can get with its 300 rain gauges in Pima County. (SAHRA stands for Sustainability of semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian Areas.)
Register at www.rainmapper. org, and you'll receive an e-mail each morning after it rains, with a map showing your house and the nearest measuring stations. The data can be viewed at rainlog.org, a Web site maintained by SAHRA and the UA's Cooperative Extension Service.
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Gary Woodard of SAHRA said he expects many of the site's users will simply sign up to quench their curiosity, but they also may find it useful for adjusting outdoor watering needs.
You get home from work on a day when you watched those skittish storm clouds dance across the valley. It looks damp in your yard, and there's a redolence of creosote on the breeze.
But did it rain enough to skip a watering cycle?
The official measurement at the airport isn't very helpful for most people, Woodard said.
Now you'll know, although you'll have to wait until after the rain loggers report their findings the next morning.
Go online:
• To receive regular rain reports for your area, go to http://www.rainmapper.org and fill out the registration form.
• To look at data from more than 700 measuring stations throughout the state, go to http://www.rainlog.org
• For more information on water topics, go to SAHRA's Web site: http://www.sahra.arizona.edu/
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