The rainfall in Postbridge was already being recorded and published in the
monthly "Parish Link" magazine when we came to live in the village.
After several years, the people doing the recording moved from the village and
we thought it would be a shame if the feature was lost. We contacted the
Environment Agency and they came to check the site and set up the new rain gauge.
Since then, we have recorded the rainfall on a daily basis and once a month we
send the information to the Environment Agency and the Parish Link magazine.
The measurements are recorded in millimetres, but a conversion to inches is
offered for the chronologically challenged.
"holm" (hõm) n, islet, esp. in river,
surrounded by water, sometimes submerged in time of flood (!!!)
There is a deep storm gully around Fairholm and "gully days" are days when
it runs with water - it does this under two conditions:
If the ground is dry & hard and we get a storm, the rain runs off because it can't soak in fast enough. This is more likely to happen in the summer months.
If the ground is already saturated and we get more heavy rain, the rain just runs off because the peat can't absorb any more.
The second case is the more usual one. The flow varies from
a mere trickle to wild & furious.
We started recording gully days when we realised that it gave us a fair
indication of the state of the well, without having to lift the cover and
peer down into it.