It's A Wrap

September 30th marked the end of the 2008 "water year", which means we're now in the 2009 water year. And, right on schedule, rain is in the forecast for the next couple of days after a fantastic stretch of warm and dry September weather.

So why does the water year begin October 1 instead of Sept, or Nov, or January? Oddly enough, I haven't been able to find a published official reason why, but one obvious reason would be that snowpack is now at its minimum and will start to build from here on out. So, I guess the southern hemisphere would start its water year April 1? Any site visitors from down under that can confirm that?

And I also haven't been able to find out whether if it's an international standard or just up to each locality.

But, at this point, I'm very quickly losing interest in the whole water year subject and just looking forward to some interesting and varied Fall stormy weather.

The 2008 water year was wetter than average in Hood River. The long term yearly average is 30.03 inches. At our weather station, we received 31.51 inches. The official Hood River station at MCAREC recorded 34.98 inches.