Virga is the word of the week around here. That’s right “virga” as in: Travis pointed at a cloud and said “Look virga.” If you are like me, you are scratching your head right now and wondering what virga is.  Some sort of weird cloud formation?

Travis has to explain it to me.  Virga is rain (or snow) that falls but never reaches the ground.  Gee and all this time I’d been calling it “rain that doesn’t reach the ground.” Now that it has an official name it seems somehow more important.  It mostly happens in the summer when the air close to the earth is very dry.

In any case we have been seeing quite a lot of virga but no measurable precipitation. And it’s hot! The animals are feeling pretty heat stressed even though we are filling their wallows every day- sometimes twice a day.  

We keep a weather eye out, but no rain yet.

See the virga below the clouds like a thin curtain? 

Poor piggy no rain for you today.