For all of the complex, non-linear, and compute intensive models that exist within meteorology/climatology, sometimes the simplest can be quite illustrative. Such is the case for the "leaky bucket model". The concept is simple, you have a bucket with a given depth (capacity) for water (filled by precipitation events) that leaks at some daily rate (evaporation, infiltration, runoff, etc). The two constraints are that the bucket can not be filled beyond its capacity and an empty bucket can not leak. The featured chart presents the data for Ames (picking a 1.5 inch bucket depth and 0.15 inch daily leak rate) between 1 May and 11 August for this year (top panel) and then the count of days each year for this period with an empty bucket. The chart nicely shows that this theoretical bucket has not been empty since mid June, but was for a number of such days prior to then so while the 2025 total is well below a simple average, it is still a number of days higher than 2024! You can tweak this model as you wish by following the "Generate this Chart" link.

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