Water Year

This is the gauge that I use for this Citizen Science Project. Click the link to see more information or to do any shopping with the affiliate. You do not have to purchase any item that I highlight and you will not be charged for going to the site from my blog. You can still shop as you normally do, but I will get credit for sending clients to their site and make a small commission. Thank you.

Onto the story…

September 30 was new year’s eve, if you are going by the Water Year. On an average year we would expect to get around 60 to 70 inches of rain in this area of the Pacific Northwest. The citizen science group that I report with is CoCoRahs .This group uses the daily reporting of hundreds of people scattered throughout North America that focus on daily monitoring of rain, snow and hail amounts. Just by observing with a purpose brings new focus to our farm and lands all across the nation.

I got an email to commemorate the day,

CoCoRaHS — Happy New Year!Fort Collins, Colorado — October 1, 2019

Greetings and Happy New Year!

If you are new to CoCoRaHS in the past year, you may think I’ve totally lost my mind.  But not so. I am referring to the “Water Year” – the way many hydrologists and meteorologists track precipitation.  The “Water Year” starts October 1 and ends September 30.  It represents the annual cycle of cool season water storage and soil moisture recharge which typically occurs in the fall, winter and spring followed by the warm season where crops and other vegetation grow and use moisture.  These dates are arbitrary, of course, but logical.  For tracking precipitation, it makes more sense than the calendar year.  So surprise your neighbors and friends and heartily wish them “Happy New Year”.

Getting into the program is easy, there is an online version through CoCoRahs and there are many extension services throughout the nation that run classes to become certified and begin reporting. There are webinars, emails and daily messages that help with questions.Even with all this info I recently had a question and referred it to the gurus that monitor the CoCoRahs website. It was on September 9th when we had an intense storm cell right over the farm with more than an inch of rain in less than an hour. I was worried that it may have been more rain than the gauge could handle, because I was not able to monitor it since I was scrambling to unplug gutters that couldn’t handle the volume with a summer debris buildup choking the downspouts. On September 10th before I reported the daily total I emailed my question, the head CoCoRahs professor Nolan Doeskin of Colorado State University emailed a response.

I think your measurement is probably fine. When the inner tube overflows, the water is captured in the outer cylinder for later measurement. We may miss a little from our gauges when very large raindrops fall and splash as they hit.     But unless there is debris stuck in the funnel of our gauge, it rarely overflows even during very heavy rain.Thanks very much for your interest and concern about accuracy.Satisfied that I reported correctly, I used the phone app to do just that. 

On the farm during October and November last year, we were above average and it looked like it was going to be a muddy Water Year. But the weather pattern took a turn and the rest of the months were trending lower until September when nature decided we needed more moisture.  Even at that it looks like we received less than 55 inches over the year.

Just looking at the numbers doesn’t explain the odd summer we had with bright blue mornings with expectations of warm weather only to have clouds roll in by mid-day with the look of the possibility of moisture only to just give us muggy afternoons with no rain at all.

Time will tell how this citizen science project helps with future forecasting but for now I am very happy to be a part of a program that observes and monitors our weather.