The Wettest Spring in Memory: Walla Walla’s Deluge and the Rainbow That Spanned Mountains
While Seattle residents fret over rain cisterns, neighbors to the east endure a historic deluge that has delayed planting and produced a rare midnight rainbow stretching from the Cascades to the Columbia.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Walla Walla Items.
The Wettest Season. — People are frequently heard to say this is the wettest season ever seen here. But how much more water has filled this season than last is to be found out by a comparison of the records. From the 1st of October 1876 to the 1st of June 1879, the recorder kept straight shows a fall of 10.47 inches of rain. During the period in 1875-6, the amount was 10.28 inches, being a difference of 1.21 inches. The most of this surplus fell, however, during the month of April and May of this year. During that time the rainfall amounted to 3.35 inches, while during the same month in 1875, the fall was only 2.33 inches. It will be seen that this has been, as compared with a year ago, a very wet spring.
Midnight Rain-bow Now. — Those persons whose business and inclination caused them to be up and out at midnight on Monday night beheld that rare occurrence, a lunar rainbow. It is described by witnesses as very beautiful, there being an arch extending from the Cascade Mountains to the Columbia Hills.
Mr. G. W. Loudagin is negotiating for a hydraulic press, warranted to exert a pressure of 200 tons, which he proposes to erect in the vicinity of Waitsburg, and use for the extraction of castor oil from the bean. He expects to put the mill in operation upon the beans he is raising this year upon twenty acres of ground.
Several families of immigrants have already arrived, while there are a great many men who have come without their families expecting to locate and then return for their families, provided the country suits them. Money will be plentier here this fall than it has been heretofore.
This 1879 report on Walla Walla's record-breaking rainfall offers a stark reminder of how climate volatility has long shaped Pacific Northwest agriculture. The delay in planting corn and the reliance on 'immigrants' to gauge land suitability mirror modern struggles with shifting weather patterns and agricultural uncertainty, proving that farmers have been battling the elements for over a century.
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