Ruh-roh
That spike to almost 35 mgd? That was Saturday.
Expect the city to be a lot more proactive this year than last about increasing water restrictions if we go more than a couple of weeks without rain. That could mean only one day a week to water your lawns. Current forecast calls for 30-40% chance of T-storms Wednesday and Thursday, and again over the weekend. Let's hope.
Also, the numbers say usage yesterday was 30.5 mgd. The graph shows it at around 29 mgd. Keep that in mind.
UPDATE: Damn, i knew i should have made a copy of the image, rather than linking to the city's graph. When the city's website comes back on line, i'll do that. Meantime, trust me, usage on Saturday got damn near 35 million gallons/day, far and away the most of any day this year.
Labels: drought
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6 Comments:
Just so I could make a comparison, what was the typical day's usage, say, back in February?
Thanks!
Rain barrel!
By
Tony, at 9:11 PM
February 08 was somewhere around 18 or 19 mgd. February 07, if i recall correctly, around 23 mgd.
I'll put in a request to Vicki Westbrook and see if they can put that data up on the site as well.
By
Barry, at 10:12 PM
I've talked to multiple people telling me what great deals are to be had on swimming pools at Target. To which I note, um, you know you can't fill them up?
But it was so hot on Saturday, I bet some people did fill up pools. Maybe that spike also included the community pools?
By
Valerie at We Love Durham, at 4:50 AM
Isn't that an entirely predictable outcome of the way the current stage of restrictions is structured (i.e., Wed/Sat)? Everyone waters on the day that they can...and it's a double whammy on the weekend, when people are more likely to be catching up on household cleaning (laundry, dishes, etc.) Seems it would make more sense to do an odd/even kind of regime or something along those lines to keep big spikes from happening on particular days.
By
Brian, at 9:54 AM
I've gone back to the square foot gardening method of watering. Which is i'm filling gallon or half gallon containers with saved shower warm-up water, and watering each of my vegetable plants by hand. Mulch helps, too. I find that 2-3 gallons 3 times a week, even in this heat, is sufficient. And as far as i know, you can water by hand 7 days a week. You just can't run the sprinkler except for those hours on Wednesday and Saturday.
By
Barry, at 10:08 AM
Brian- true enough. However, if you look at today's graph, you'll see that the last 5 days are all above 25 mgd usage, and sunday was above 30 mgd as well. Current combined inflows have been averaging about 13 - 14 mgd for the past week or so.
Keep an eye on those. If they drop to below 10 mgd, then our premium water supply becomes very significant, since we'll be essentially using only reservoir water. If demand stays near 30 mgd (only a 10% decrease from June 07), then we have only about a 6 month supply of water again.
By
Barry, at 11:07 AM
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