So far it’s been a very wet spring, after three very dry summers. We’ve had eight inches of rain so far in May. We’ve had 28.07 inches since January 1st. That’s according to UGA’s Weather Network, where the data comes from the weather station at Mercier Orchards.
We’ve had springs that started off wet and turned off dry, and that may yet happen this year. If it doesn’t, we’re on track to get to our former yearly total of sixty or so inches of rain. That was the situation thirty years ago, when our area really was a temperate rainforest. It seemed to rain pretty much every day in the spring and summer. I can remember, when Dad and I first bought our cabin, telling people, “It’s fun to go up there and watch it rain, for about a day and a half.” And, if my memory serves, it regularly rained a lot harder than it ever does now. Sometimes, standing on my deck, it felt like I was on a boat in the driving rain.
Parts of the Southern Appalachians received as much as 120 inches of rain a year. While it doesn’t seem that Fannin County every equaled that amount, sixty inches a year still qualifies as a temperate rainforest.
Here’s an article from Wikipedia on the subject. I see that it reportedly has some flaws. but I think the information here is basically correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_temperate_rainforest
I doubt that we are returning to those days, but when I look outside and see how leafy, green, and dark it is and how big the leaves are, there’s no doubt that it brings back memories of the old days.