In the category of life imitating art, yesterday (4 August 2026) was the future date referenced in the 1950 short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" written by Ray Bradbury. While some Iowans did experience something more than soft rains, a majority of the state received something much softer. The featured chart presents one minute interval data from the ISU Soil Moisture station just west of Ames. The bottom panel shows the one minute interval rainfall totals. The station utilizes a classic tipping bucket to report rainfall in 0.01 inch increments (one tip of the automated mechanism). So the minute totals are not a true minute accumulation as the time to generate one tip can take more than one minute. The label above the plot provides the maximum rainfall accumulations over various intervals of time. Those maximum values are not excessive at all and likely quality as a "soft rain" for most folks!

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