This won’t be Delaware’s wettest winter, but it will be close

It doesn’t take a genius to know there’s been a lot of rain in the past few months. There are plenty of examples to share, but here are the two that spurred this column.

First, sometime in the past year, in advance of buildings being constructed, a stormwater retention pond was built for the new Cypress Grove development off Route 16 in Milton. I go by the retention pond almost daily, and for the first few months of its existence, it was basically dry. That changed in December. It hasn’t always been full, but since December, the pond has had some water in it.

Second is the mermaid next to Besche Furniture on Route 9. The existing mermaid, and a version before it, has been in that location for many years. The other day, I had to be in Georgetown for an assignment, which meant I drove by the mermaid and, for the first time in years, the water level in that pond was actually touching the tail.

With all the rain, I was curious just how wet this winter had been, so I reached out to Kevin Brinson, associate state climatologist and assistant research professor for the University of Delaware’s Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences. The short of it is, this winter – December, January, February – may not go down as the wettest winter period in the state’s history, but it won’t be far from it.

For climatology purposes, Delaware is split into two zones – northern and southern, which are basically New Castle County and the lower two counties. Brinson said in the southern zone, the typical amount of precipitation for the three winter months is a combined 10.06 inches; this year, it’s going to be somewhere between 15 and 15.5 inches. Although official amounts haven’t been released, he said, it will be at least 50% more than normal.

“That’s pretty substantial,” Brinson said.

The state has weather data going back to 1895. This winter will be in the top five or six, said Brinson. The wettest winter for the southern region was in 1978-79, when there was 17.89 inches of precipitation, he said.

All the rain may have made for a dreary few months, but there is some good news associated with it.

“There are no drought concerns, which is a positive,” said Brinson. “There will definitely be adequate soil moisture for those early spring plantings.”

RIP to my favorite campaign sign

For the better part of the past two years, there was a campaign sign on Route 1 near the Wawa outside Lewes. It appeared during the 2022 election cycle. The reason it caught my eye was that from the highway, all I could see was that it said Geist/Johnson ‘22. I knew that wasn’t one of the local campaigns. I simply figured it was an out-of-towner having fun, but for the life of me, I could not find a campaign with those two last names.

About a month ago, I finally pulled over and took a closer look. The reason I couldn’t find a campaign was because it was a fake campaign sign. It was a wedding announcement. I found the Facebook page of the couple that got married. A post to the page in December indicates they were also aware the sign had stood much longer than anticipated. In fact, as a joke, they hint at a possible campaign in 2024.

They haven’t updated the page since December. Unfortunately, I have some bad news – about three weeks after I stopped by, the sign was destroyed.

Joke of the Week

The annual loss of a weekend hour – also known as daylight saving time – takes place this weekend at 2 a.m., Sunday, March 10. I like to have my jokes be somewhat related to what’s happening in the not-too-distant future, but I’m not going to lie; I had some trouble finding a daylight saving-themed joke that was actually funny. This is the best I could do. As always, send jokes to cflood@capegazette.com.

Q: Did you hear about the clock that tried to escape daylight saving time?

A: It had a second thought!