Dorchester Times: Prediction: Dorchester Will Receive Significant Rainfall Thursday P.M.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Prediction: Dorchester Will Receive Significant Rainfall Thursday P.M.

Our weather forecast: The Dorchester area will get some drought relief Thursday evening into Friday morning.

We're calling it. Mark it down. This despite the fact Dorchester and most of Saline County have not received measurable precipitation since June 20. (For Dorchester, the last rainfall better than 0.25" came on June 14.)

The "experts" known as meteorologists are predicting that tomorrow (Thursday) night will bring a 50% chance of thunderstorms, followed by a lingering 30% chance into Friday morning.

But here in our underground bunker, the Dorchester Times' high-tech forecasting equipment -- which relies on a combination of the Farmers Almanac, wind speed and direction, humidity level, hurricanes present in the Atlantic, and dogs eating grass -- almost guarantees a significant amount of rain will fall tomorrow night after sunset. Look for it to come around 8:00 p.m. to 10 p.m.

And if we're wrong, we promise to refund all our readers exactly what they paid for their Dorchester Times subscription.

(UPDATE: We give up on rain ever falling again in Saline County. And we have fired our grass-eating dogs from their weather forecasting jobs.)

4 comments:

AnonymousSeptember 6, 2012 at 7:22 AM
Thanks for making me smile this morning!!
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CSBSeptember 6, 2012 at 9:04 AM
Hope you are right.
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cynical richardSeptember 6, 2012 at 11:47 AM
................you guys are nuttier than i am ................ kooky folks at the times ........... my ranch cat isnt burying its mess after it does its job ...................... does that mean that we can expect snow in 30 days???? ....................
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AnonymousSeptember 6, 2012 at 4:24 PM
No Richard that just means your ranch cat wants you to step in it and walk in the house and spread it around like all the rest of the crap you put on here !!!!
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."