How hard is the water in Holmes County, MS?

0.7 grains per gallon

You do not need a softener here.

The median hardness measured in Holmes County, MS is 11 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 0.7 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 8 samples at 6 sites between 1990 and 2019, drawn from groundwater wells, which is what most taps and private wells in the county draw on.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 0.2 and 2 gpg. The whole middle of that range gives the same answer, so a test of your own tap is unlikely to change it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).

What to do next

You can skip the softener. At 0.7 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Holmes County says otherwise, ask to see their reading in grains per gallon and compare it with this one.

More on when a softener is not worth it.

From 0.1 to 9.5 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Holmes County was 1.8 mg/L and the hardest 162 mg/L, a 90-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 2 gpg and the bottom quarter below 0.2 gpg.

Wells 0.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 3.9 gpg

8 groundwater samples from 6 wells put the median at 11.4 mg/L. 28 surface samples from 3 sites put it at 66.9 mg/L. In Holmes County the rivers and lakes come out 3.2 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. A utility here that draws from the aquifer can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.

Holmes County against the rest of Mississippi

Among the 78 Mississippi counties with data, Holmes County is number 63 of 78 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 3% of counties.

Softest in Mississippi: Issaquena County at 0.1 gpg. Hardest: Franklin County at 60.5 gpg. Closest to Holmes County: Lamar County (0.7), Lincoln County (0.6), Pearl River County (0.6).