2024 Rainfall is up but still a Drought

There were ten more inches of rainfall this water year than last year.  The reason for the apparent drought was the rainfall distribution. The graph and supporting data below show that the situation started to develop in April of 2024 when the precipitation fell off.

By April 2024, the watershed had received as much rainfall as it had by September of the previous year. The groundwater recharge relationship incorporated in the completed water budget model will allow the vagaries of rainfall to be accounted for by the mass balance of water in minus water out equals the change in water level. This approach allows the analysis to avoid needing to model such things as evaporation, transpiration, hydraulic transmissivity, etc.

The goal is to model how rainfall moves through the system to allow for a robust predictive model.

The rainfall distribution study for 2022-2023 vs. 2023-2024 at Deep Creek is below.