Throughout this spring, you’ve likely heard your CNYCentral First Alert Meteorologists talking about our rainfall deficit, and how much rainfall we need in order to “get back on track.” Tuesday, over 1.09” of rain fell at the Syracuse Hancock Airport, setting a new daily rainfall record. The old record was 1.04”, set back in 1971. We received so much rainfall, as a matter of fact, that a 125 mile stretch of the Erie Canal had to be shut down Tuesday, stretching from near Albany all the way to the east end of Oneida Lake, due to high water.
As you can probably imagine, this also significantly chopped-away at our spring-time rainfall deficit, reducing it to a mere .2”. Why is this important?
Jason Fridley, assistant professor in the Syracuse University Biology department told me the following: “…really important this time of the year because plants use the water for a number of different things, even more importantly than we use it for. For example, like we do, the primary constituent of their cells, in their cytoplasm, just like for you and me, we’re mostly water, so are plants. Plants have some unique needs for water, they can’t make food without water.”
If plants can’t make food, Fridley says there are larger consequences.
“So no water this time of year means, essentially, no productivity, our systems would kind of slow down, there'd be no new carbon in the system, and all the animals that rely on that food source would be out of luck”, Fridley says.
With that understanding, it’s safe to say our recent rainfall has been very beneficial for the Greater Syracuse area.
