On Monday, January 9, 2017 at 9:49:22 AM UTC-8, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

Long periods of no or little rain can cause the ground to dry out to the point that it does NOT absorb much water. You really do NOT want to be in a canyon with steep sides or in a dry weash in the desert when it rains even miles away or in an area that has had a long drought. That's because the water runs off and water levels in washes or canyons can rise very high EXTREMELY quickly and the force of that water roaring through is virtually irresistable. You'd never be able to outrun it either.

That's part of what makes it so hard for underground aquifiers to get replenished after a drought = the water runs off into rivers and such before it has a chance to penetrate to the aquifier.

However much truth there is to that this isn't the case since we had a month of very slow rains that gave the ground lot of time to reabsorb water all the way down to the water table.

Now the only thing standing in front of absorption is the normal percolation rates of the soils in various areas.