How many rain drops are there in a storm?

The rains from California finally traveled 2000 miles to the east coast. The storm arrived last night in the evening, around 7pm. It rained all night and was basically over by around 8AM. In that time it dumped between 1 and 4 inches of rain depending on what part of the county you live in.

For us it wasn't too bad, well for me I should say. Brad woke up at 5AM to the sound of water doing something it shouldn't - not going down the drain pipe. He got up and found that the water that should have gone down the drain was instead running under the basement door into the basement - fortunately NOT on the side where he has been spackling and painting.

He spent the next 3 hours digging a diversion ditch and getting the water out of the basement. By the time I showed up he was pretty much finished.

I didn't leave home until around 1:30PM. By then the temps were in the 60's the sky was blue and we did not get the wind so it was quite lovely. As I drove around I saw the tell-tale signs of flooding everywhere. The mud over the road just down from our driveway, the debris on the bridge out of town where the river had flowed over the deck, the rivers in the fields that normally are dry. The road to my friends house was river - she sent photos and it was clear they would not be driving down it today. VDOT has been there making repairs so they should be able to get out tomorrow. Just about everywhere in the county you could see that water had done something pretty incredible.

Where my horse's live the property has two rivers as boundary lines. I drove down to the bridge where the river crosses the road and then goes along the edge of her property. It was a a large river and lake as far as I could see. I haven't checked to find out how much of the rest of the property is flooded but I am sure she will have photos.

So now the storm has moved on to New England leaving more flooding in its wake. I began to think about all this rain and a 2000 mile journey and I got to wondering just how many rain drops were up in that storm. How many gallons of rain did it drop? How in the world could a storm carry 4 inches of rain to Virginia when it had already been raining along the way. No idea - but the idea was something for me to ponder today.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring. They are calling for more snow by the weekend.