Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Rain Dance!

I live just east of Kansas City MO and we are in a horrible drought. We have not have a single rain above 1.4" since March. Almost all our rains are .1-.4"

Needless to say the ponds in my area are way down, including my neighbors who both have dry ponds now for the first time in 31 years they said.

Our pond has done better but we are down 4 to 4.5 feet. with maybe only 4.5-5' now at deepest spot. They are predicting a very wet pattern the next week of up to 7.5"

I've taken advantage of adding pee gravel areas, contour changes, PVC fish trees, and cider blocks with so much shore being exposed. If this rains comes, should we turn the fountain on for longer periods of time to help mix the water?

Lets hope we get this rain!

Are you up in Clay county? I understand its still dry up there. My in-laws farm east along I-70 near Concordia - they have caught some rain such that ponds are near full. My place is in Henry county and we had some great rain a few weeks ago. Still, watching the forecast coming up for rain hoping to fill the duck lakes. But don't really want 7.5"

I plan to run my aeration system more extensively anytime I get a large amount of water inflow. I have excessive water shed and believe (without experience) that turning the water over to help mix the inflow with the existing water will minimize the shock value of the sudden changes. Of course, this could be dangerous if the aeration system has been turned off for the winter and at that point I would have to play it by ear.

There's a lot of factors at play here and I would be looking at the water column temps, rain water temps, and air temps. Things like pond water/rain water chemistry is outside of my current abilities.

I would think that because it is mild weather temps and assume that your fountain has been running enough to de-stratify your remaining water column that running the fountain more constantly would be a bit of insurance. I think you're biggest risk is a bringing stagnant/dead water up from a stratified pond and/or large temperature/chemistry changes.

The above is a lot of opinion, but I'm hearing your thoughts and will watch your thread for others responses.

I can't imagine if my pond were to be only half full...I bet you've been down about it all summer!

I am located in Grain Valley MO, just north of the I70 area. We seemed to have missed every good rain.

Right now the fountain runs from 7am to 11:30am daily

Tallryan610,how did you do on the first wave of rain? They was saying that we was going to get some of the same rain, but it never made it here.

So far just 3/10” most the rain is predicted for the next four days. Now they have lowered it to 1-5”

Picked up almost 2” overnight and this morning, pond has risen a good 3”

We have had 2.9" so far with this rain. 2.7" last night

Glad to hear you guys are getting some. They say that I should see some tonight, but as of yet, nothing for me.

I can't even guess how much we've gotten in the past month. It seems if there's a thunderstorm anywhere, it's rolling over us. I did buy a rain gauge/outside thermometer tonight tho, so I'll be able to keep up with it now. The overflow pipe is working overtime. Sure hope y'all get what you need soon.

Last night it rained all night and it’s still going!

4” total now and the pond has risen 6”

First time since March the pond has gone up.

That's great! They were calling for 1"-2" here last night,and I got nothing.

So far now 5” of rain and the pond is up 8”

I wish I'd get 5", as low as my pond is it would probably give me a few feet in it. I did get a few sprinkles a little while ago, but not enough to talk about.

Last night we picked up an addition 3.75" that's 8.75" since Friday night now.

Pond was up 17" this morning and rising! They are calling for more rain through Wednesday morning.

Wow, that's great! They said we have a chance tomorrow night into Wednesday, but I won't hold my breath. Lol! They say that the heaviest rain will be west of us.

That's a fair amount of rain Ryan. I am south of I-70 only 60 miles east of you and we only received a little over 1 inch from Friday to this morning, but we have received rain over the last month when you have been dry. Glad to hear that your pond is coming up!

I think I figured out how get the rain to move on!! I bought a rain gauge! Haven't had a drop since!!

Our area is the only area in the state that is still under severe drought conditions....... ugh y’all send me some of your extra

We've got two fronts forcasted to make it into the deep south in the next few days. Overnight temps in the 50s. Hopefully they'll both pull some of this moisture up into those areas that need it so badly.

Finally getting some serious rain! YES!

Yeah man!!! Glad you're finally getting something significant!!

Last night we picked up another 1.25" bringing the total now to 10.5!

They are calling for an additional 1-3" today and then its over.

Pond was up another few inches this morning. Still 20" or so away from being full is my guess

Send some my way.I think I need you to teach me your Rain Dance!lol!

Total rain now is 11.2”, I can’t remember such a 4 day period of rain. We were in the exceptional drought past 2 months which is the worst of the 5 levels. This is such a blessing to have water before winter.

Pond is up 30” exactly now. It appears to have 16-18” to go before the overflow pipes. My guess is by Friday it might be to the overflow level.

All the pee gravel areas, cinder block structures, and pvc trees are well under water. Hopefully all the work pays off long term!

It is just so odd to see the pond fullish, it was completely full when we bought the property 14 months ago but we have had such poor moisture since and apparently it dropped 46-48” since over the year.

Amazing. We’ve received 2.6” since 10/1. I was pretty happy with that. I know the folks around Chillicothe were pretty dry earlier this summer, but I think everyone is getting caught up. Hopefully Bob is getting some of this.

We had a total of 8.5" since last Friday. It was drizzling this morning too.

Not much for me. I got about .10" last night, which makes my total for the month, about.35" so far. No where near as much as I thought I'd get, the way they was talking on the news.

We received exactly 1.0" since yesterday afternoon. It stopped drizzling by about 9:30 this morning. Zero run off from this rain. Before this rain, the ponds had equalled their all time lows since first fill. They are about an inch above that now. The last rain that had "run off" was July 18.

BTW, the forecast always has a "wet bias".

Quote attributed to TWC:
"According to Silver, The Weather Channel has openly admitted to deliberately exaggerating the probability of precipitation when it is low. This is because of biased incentives: if the correct low probability of precipitation is given, viewers may interpret the forecast as if there were no probability of rain, and then be upset if it does rain. In other words, The Weather Channel compensates for the people that have greater loss aversion than they think they do, and therefore miscalculate their cost-loss ratio when it is low, by deliberately inflating probabilities. Silver quotes Dr. Rose of The Weather Channel as saying, "If the forecast was objective, if it has zero bias in precipitation, we are in trouble."

My place in Wichita received about 6" in the past 5 days! Every river within 60 miles has a flood warning on it. Ponds and Lakes are full now!

I guess a big rain will eventually come here, but who knows when?

Been in Jeff City MO all day and got home and measured pond this evening. It’s up 2” more. Water is still coming up in from several areas. Calling for cold rain Friday and Sunday night. Pond is probably 11-13” from full now. Amazing how low it really was. Going to take boat out and do some depth measurements this weekend.

Got up to the farm yesterday. We received another inch on Wednesday night. Getting close to full again. I was there for all of 10 minutes (checked game cameras). Getting pretty close to the feeder! It was three feet down a month ago. Fish were still feeding pretty aggressively. Supposed to rain off and on all day today. I may end up with a little bit of moisture in the bottom of the feeder. Just didn’t have time to even drag it up out of the way. ( Wife’s BDay, had dinner reservations.)

Looking good!

The ground still feels like a sponge in several areas around the pond and we are still rising (about 2" per day) however it is slowing down a lot. One reason being is that it's filling up a much larger surface now. We are supposed to pick up a .25" of rain today and possibly a .5" Sunday. However the ground is still so wet I'm sure most of it will run off.

Going to try and fish some tomorrow.

Sounds great Ryan! I will be curious how the fishing goes. Massive water level change, temperature drop, and high/low pressure effects...the fish are probably a bit anxious. Let us know what you pull out and how you did it.

We received 0.16" overnight and early morning. Typical for here for the past few months.

Picked up a surprising 4/10” today.

Now we are around 11-12” from the overflow pipes. They are calling for some rain/snow mix Sunday then sunny next week. Not sure we will make it up to the overflows.

Didn’t fish the pond this morning but went to local lake where a buddy lives. Caught a 4.7’ LMB and had another throw the hook at the boat that was a big boy definitely bigger than the other. BG were biting hard too.

Two day total rain here 0.22". Possibly more rain this evening and tomorrow.

I ended up getting .25" yesterday. Not much, but better than nothing. I hope to get a little more tomorrow.

Yay finally got a good rain.... 5” in several hours

Three day total is up to 0.86" now. Very very little help to the ponds. It's typical of this year. Small, frequent, slow rains that do nothing for ponds.

They are calling for .1-.5” today then sunny rest of the week.

The pond has come up almost 4” since Friday morning, right now it is just ground “springs” filling it up. The neighbors call them springs because they leech a lot of water during wet periods but they were absolutely dry during this drought. There are probably 2 dozen of those spots up hill from the pond and one large below our pond before the neifghbors pond. I don’t think that is a spring, we have zero rock in our soil, when excavated the house not one rock was found. We had 5-6’ of top soil then pure clay below that. My belief is water saturates through the top soil then finds ways to poke out once it hits the clay layer.

Fished this morning and the BG were hitting the pellet food really hard, but not too much on live worms, only caught a half dozen of them and one bass. The Hybrid BG sure are getting big, they all all 2” or more wide. All the fish I stocked this spring look very healthy and I see a wide range of size of BG when I feed them. The BG seemed to have moved into the gravel areas I put in during the drought. They liked that area before I just lined the whole bottom with free playground gravel.

So far 8/10th of an inch. The pond is now 6” from overflow pipes

They are predicting very cold rain/snow tonight

I got about .20" last night, not much but I'll take it. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much more in the forecast right now either.

Attached is a pic AFTER we had 3" of rain and one of the coves started to getting water back in it. The other picture is from this moring

Looks Great!

We got 0.37" last night.

Measured pipes this afternoon, pond came up another 2” only 4 more to go!

After being 2 feet low since July, my BOW is finally rising. Hope that we get the overflow pipe running soon, as that means full pool. Also, rain will fill my forage pond so I can stock it.

Need to check again re possible turnover what with rain & big chill. TP likely won't make it, but that is to be expected this time of year.