If you look closely you can see rivulets! Intense rain

Of all the "Wedding Movies", Monsoon Wedding is far and away my favorite. It's colorful, interesting, well plotted (subplots included), the cast is attractive and competent. I may have to watch it today to celebrate the arrival of the rain from Tropical Storm Hannah. After having plenty of rain through most of the summer, we hit a sort of a snag over the last month and a half. Temperatures in the Washington area in August were above average, as they have been fairly consistently for the last year and a half. Rainfall was infrequent; Reagan National Airport received approximately 2.25" less than would have been expected. Added to this were a number of recent days when the wind was high and the humidity was low, and shallowly rooted plants including many perennials, and plants that had not yet established root systems were showing significant stress.

Today's rain will be nice, we have almost 2" at noon, but it won't be a monsoon....still, to those of us who's jobs it is to establish and maintain plants and gardens, it does come as a welcome relief. Summer, which just ended meteorologically, has been broken. There will be hot days and there may be the need to water, but the urgency is gone. Thank you Hannah.