How wet is wet? Computing the returns from my rain gage in Milanville for January through October has been an eye opener. And the results have stood on its head the common sense axiom that “April showers bring May flowers.”

Slugs of heavy rain since the ice broke up on the Delaware River in mid-March have meant continuous high water. A gage painted on a bridge abutment at Damascus has registered “high” and “very high” levels almost every week. A couple of times the river topped the 12-foot flood stage at Damascus, as it did the night of October 29.

But it’s the uneven precipitation that’s been a major surprise. For the five months from January through May, my gage registered 14.63 inches of total precipitation, including the water equivalent of 32 inches of snow.

During the same time frame, from June through October, frequently cloudy skies produced 32 inches of rain, with nearly 1/3 of it coming in September.

The combined total for April and May (including six inches of snow in April) was just 5.61 inches of precipitation.

Key indices where I live are rocks piled into an inverted V shape in the river not far from our meadow. From June until today, I’ve hardly seen riffles at this venerable eel rack, let alone the boulders themselves.

Last migrant? A spell of warm days brought a couple of late monarch migrants into the region, the last one reported by John Ogazalek on October 31. John wrote, “I saw one Monarch go by this afternoon, just outside the new high school in Lake Huntington amidst all the construction. It was a beautiful day and the Monarch was heading south, past bulldozers and dump trucks.”

I urge readers who’ve observed a monarch after October 30 to contact me at The River Reporter.