Bad Lawn Overseeding Advice

So, to make sure I didn't forget anything since the last time I overseeded my lawn, I went to the internet.  OMG, what nonsense I found.

WikiHow seemed like a good place to start.  What they said at first matched what I remembered.  But then it got weird.

They had 2 sections; overseeding an existing lawn and seeding a new lawn.  I ONLY looked at the overseeding part.  They said to cut the grass short (right), and dethatch if necessary (right) and rough up bare spots (right).

But then they said to till the soil 1-2" deep and rake the debris away.  Whoa!  Why cut the grass and then till it away?  That is for new lawns.  They messed up their instructions.

So I looked at another site about lawn care.  They said to overseed your fescue lawn in early September (here) when the high temperature is 55-70F.  OOPS!  The temp isn't 55-70 until mid October at best (here).  And fescue germinates best at 75-85F.  Another fail!

Where do these sites get their information?  Do they just ask some random stranger?  Do they just make it up?

I'm going to visit WikiHow and see if there is a way I can correct their disinformation.

Meanwhile, my plans to overseed the lawn are at a standstill.  Not because of bad internet advice, but because of weather.  I thought I had things planned well.  The soil was wet, but there was a 4 day forecast of non-rain.  The first morning, I would aerate the lawn and mow the existing grass short, rake a few bare spots caused by my trailer to help the seed settle in, and spread the seed.

As mentioned previously, I got half the yard aerated and mowed when the mower ran out of gas.  It was afternoon the next day before I got it running again and finished the job just in time for a surprise rainstorm (and it rained the next day too).  You can't spread seed in wet grass.  It sticks to the exiting grass blades (now reaching the soil), and rain makes the seeds rot.

Well, I could wait a few days for it to dry out.  No such luck.  It kept drizzling off and on for several more days.  Then there were thunderstorms for a couple days.  And now there is Hurricane Florence coming.  Heavy rain will loosen rooting grass and kill it, and unrooted seeds will wash into ripples across the lawn downslope. 

So I've been forced to wait.  The good news is that Hurricane Florence is predicted to take a more westerly course when it makes landfall in 3 days.  And then it should move east again as it weakens.  So maybe now more rain for a while after the weekend.  Then I can do the preparation all over again and finally spread the grass seed. 

We have had an bizarre number of rainy days this summer, and some weeks have had a lot of volume of rain as well.  My 6" capacity rain gauge has been filled a couple times, and 2" every couple days is routine. 

This is really unusual.  A decade ago, it was routine to have the soil in my lawn crack open from dryness in August and the grass go brown and dormant until late September.  Today, I pushed a 12" screwdriver into the soil easily right to the handle.

Weather variations are maddening!