By Paul Silverfarb
Sentinel Correspondent
It was hard this week to not go outside and say how wonderful it felt recently. Fall’s certainly in the air and, at times, it felt like summer wasn’t quite ready to let go.
And getting outside has been easy to accomplish, as sunshine has reigned supreme the past few weeks.
However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows throughout Greenwich. Despite the heavy precipitation the town received during the late spring and early summer months, the Greenwich Reservoir System is being closely monitored.
As of Sept. 28, the Greenwich reservoir is at 58.7% capacity. That’s a little below the 20-year average, which is around 68%.
In the month of September, Greenwich usually receives around four inches of rain. This year, the Town averaged 2.6 inches of rain. Over the past 90 days, Greenwich sees on average of 13 inches of rain. As of press time, Greenwich has seen roughly 10 inches of rain.
“In the early spring, we were being cautious,” said Denise Savageau, director of the Greenwich Conservation Commission. “We didn’t have good amount of rain until mid-April. Then we started getting rains at the end of April. We set May 1 as the day where we would lift most of the restrictions. We then went into the two-day a week watering restriction.”
While the reservoir in town in lower than it should be for this time of year, that also means that there is a concern for the amount of ground water, in addition to the low water flow in the town’s rivers and streams.
“We have had incidental reports of folks saying that their well isn’t acting the way it should be. It’s a little dry and it’s running slow,” Savageau said. “That’s reflected in the fact that we are now going into the fall in a deficit situation for the third year in a row. Because we had good rain in May, June and July, it’s not as bad as it was last year. In 2015 we had a dry fall and last year we obviously had a big dry fall and a whole dry year. We are getting to the third year in a row where we are in a below average rainfall.”
Once the rains hit Greenwich more frequently in the middle of the spring and the start of the summer, Savageau, and the rest of the region, was hoping that the reservoirs, streams and ground water were going to catch up and pull the area out of its water deficit.
“Interestingly enough, when looking at this for 365 days, we are still about eight inches below where we would be looking at a 10-year average rainfall,” said Savageau. “That means that the Town of Greenwich didn’t catch up yet.”
Jacob Meisel, chief weather analyst for SWCT / NY Weather, said that having this type of weather, where precipitation has been at a premium, is nothing too unusual.
“The pattern continues to not support too much sustained rain throughout the region, even though we are expecting a decent amount of heavy rains coming up shortly,” Meisel said. “We are in a relatively dry pattern. Storm systems are either cutting out to our west or remaining down to our south.”
Meisel said that this current dry spell is not on his list of concerns right now, as he believes it’s not really likely that the region will have a sustained drought through the winter.
“La Niña winters tend to bring at least some activity to the area, especially when the La Niña is east-based, being the coldest waters are in the Eastern Pacific,” Meisel said. “That kind of eases my concern, for now, about how sustained this dry spell will be. However, it’s something worth watching because we are seeing early indications of a possible drought developing.”
Conservation has been the key for Greenwich. And it’s because of the restrictions and the conserving of water throughout the area that Greenwich isn’t in an emergency situation.
This year, the town put into effect its twice-weekly sprinkler irrigation schedule. Residents with the last digit of their address number being an even number can water their grounds Sundays and Wednesdays before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. Residents with odd number address numbers can water their property Saturdays and Tuesdays before 10 a.m. and after 6 p.m. Residents with no address numbers are watering their properties Sundays and Wednesdays before 10 am or after 6 p.m.
“We are concerned,” said Savageau. “We want people to understand that they have to conserve. But at this point we don’t have to go into any restrictive measures because we did a good job all year. We really want to applaud the folks who did good work this year and understood that this was important.”
Greenwich has been making a solid impact in its conservation efforts. Savageau said that the town was able to reduce the consumption this summer by around 17%.
“If we didn’t do that, our reservoirs wouldn’t be at 58.7% because people would have gone through the summer using as much water as they wanted, instead of sticking to the two-day system,” she said. “It did exactly what we needed it to do, which was level off what we use for water. We have these really big spikes in the summer, when it gets really hot and people use a lot of water. We wanted people to do water conservation year-round because when we have a time where it’s getting into a drought or becoming abnormally dry, we don’t have an emergency. If I was at 48% instead of 58%, I would be really concerned and we would be having a very different conversation. Putting on the restrictions did exactly what the water company, the town and the State Department of Public Health hoped it would do. We are now more resilient because are practicing good water conservation.”
Savageau said that despite the conservation efforts, she noticed that there are still several Greenwich residents that think conserving isn’t too important and that the Town was acting like an alarmist. Her message to those people is very simple.
“Because of the systems we have in place, I don’t have to put out an emergency this year, which really impacting residents in terms of people wanting to do fall planting and other fall things,” Savageau said. “We have nurseries and landscape people that make their livelihood in the fall. Of course, we don’t want them planting in July and August because those are usually our driest months. By the time we get into September, October and November, that’s when they should be planting and that’s when we ask people to do that normally.”
And this fall, Meisel believes the weather will be nothing unusual, saying that, while Greenwich will heat up over the week or so, it should step down in the next few weeks to a gradually cooler pattern moving through the end of October and the beginning of November.
“That could bring an additional risk of rain, as well as we see cool fronts slide through the region and more low-pressure systems swing by,” Meisel said.
However, in the near future, residents shouldn’t quite put the shorts away just yet. But that might be the worst thing in the world.
“We are going to see a very strong ridge of warmth is going to build over the area and pull some moisture up from the South across the region as well,” Meisel said. “We should see some rain over the next couple of weeks. It looks like it will be warmer around the region for the next couple of weeks.”
