The polling goes on but the results are in. After a personal appeal to providence from the governor, the rains hath come. But in not enough volume to do much good.

A storm crashed through the Southeast and brought up to an inch of rain in parts of drought-stricken Georgia, but forecasters said the storm likely did little to ease the state’s historic drought.

“The ground probably sucked it all up,” said Vaughn Smith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Peachtree City. “The ground is so dry, I seriously doubt if any of the lakes rose any.”…

The rainfall came two days after Gov. Sonny Perdue led a prayer service on the steps of the state Capitol to beg the heavens for an end to the drought.

So violent was the storm in Tennessee that it damaged the roof of a, er, Baptist church. If you’re curious, here’s the data on rainfall for select parts of Georgia for each month over the past decade. They have been getting some (more so than in the corresponding months for 2005, in fact) and November in recent years has typically brought greater precipitation so there’s some hope for relief. But check out these two maps. Oof.