Overnight in Grand Junction about one-tenth (0.1) inch of rain (precipitation) made it to the ground. Hearing the slightest amount of rain falling on the roof brought back great memories of growing up in northern Virginia. The Washington D.C. area gets about 41 inches of rain per year and typical storms bring at least an inch or more of precipitation. Seems like I always slept better hearing the rain on the roof, knowing the atmosphere would be cleansed of harmful pollution in the air (so maybe my asthma would not be so bad the next day), that the wildlife depending on the rains for survival would be okay, feeling the fish in the rivers flowing to the oceans would be happy….
Back to Grand Junction, which by contrast averages 8 to 10 inches annually and where it seems I wake up more frequently soon after midnight, the last rain occurred on September 10th with slightly more than last night of 0.18 in. We set a record cold temperature of 19 deg. F about a month later (October 11th). Before this cold snap, all drip irrigation systems had to be “winterized” to turn off the water and blow air through lines to prevent freezing equipment. Then high temperatures quickly returned to the low 60 deg. F so some plants and small trees still needed hand watering. We planted mostly native species for desert landscaping so we’ve been watering twice per month over the past 40 days. This pristine drinking water supply comes from Ute Water on the top of Grand Mesa.
Comparing the wet-dry environments of the humid D.C. area to the very arid Western U.S. is an important consideration not only for sleeping but also for water laws and policy. Although the seven Colorado River basin states have a compact to share water as discussed in the previous blog, the federal government created the law to authorize the compact. Federal water policies have a history of overestimating the amount of water available to the arid west. The divided nation of politics is also found in water and climate. With climate change, the U.S. humid/arid boundary along the 100th meridian is moving east according to this Scientific American article. So maybe we can hope Washington will start to notice so we can all sleep better!