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As night falls after a day and a half of intermittent rain, the guage on the deck reads 5.2 centimeters of rainfall. For the non-scientific that's very close to two and one-eighth inches. It's nice to have a little rain, but we are still 68.6 centimeters behind on this year's average rainfall, That's the same as 2 feet, 3 inches. The water level of most lakes around here rises 2 centimeters for every one centimeter of rain until the lake is level with the the spillway. Or the level falls two centimeters for every centimeter we are behind on normal rainfall amounts. In short, our lakes have dropped their water level by four and a half feet! That means that shallow lakes and ponds are drying up and that hydroelectric plants are having a hard time generating electricity. (We have brief brownouts regularly nowadays.)