Remember, the Drought’s Not Over

The first week of January brought much-needed rain to the area, prompting sighs of relief for many along area lakes as water levels rose.  Some water districts even relaxed their conservation measures a bit, reducing mandatory restrictions in some cases.

Since that drenching, rain has again been hard to come by.  We’ve had several opportunities, but most of the rain has come in as light, including the rain we had on Wednesday January 28.  Our rainfall with respect to normal has slipped to where we will be below-normal for the end of January.

Droughts are long-term…and one or two hearty rain events aren’t going to fix the problem.  We need either a short-term period of well above-normal rainfall or, more preferably, an extended period of near to a bit above-normal rain to allow our watersheds to get back to and maintain “normal” flows.

This is why any reduced restrictions right now are curious; if we do not receive adequate rainfall over the next few months, we will be approaching a hotter and drier time of year…perhaps with fewer resources than we had going into last summer.  Any water saved now will pay big dividends later if the regular rains do not materialize…and we can always relax restrictions once we are actually out of the drought.

Here’s hoping for some rain for the rest of winter and into spring…so we can enjoy summer without worrying about low lake levels or water sources running dry.