July is usually the driest month of the year on the central Oregon coast, and July 2024 was no exception. But a day-long rainstorm on July 29 bumped up the numbers for the month and likely gave the city of Yachats a short reprieve on water issues.
Monday’s rainstorm dropped .28 inches of rain in Yachats, but surprisingly less up the Yachats River, according to weather watchers for YachatsNews.
But that was enough to increase the flow of the Yachats River by a couple of cubic feet per second and keep the city’s two water sources – Reedy and Salmon creeks – running well.
“That good little rain should buy us a week or so (of good flows) …” said Rick McClung, water supervisor for Yachats.
The city’s water treatment plant can produce 500,000 gallons of water a day and the city’s storage tanks hold 1.7 million gallons, he said. Weekend water use in Yachats is about 210,000 gallons a day, McClung said, and 120,000 gallons during the week.
That means, so far – and August and September are the next driest months of the year on the coast – water supplies are OK.
“It’s interesting that the Yachats River gained 2.25 cubic feet per second indicating that the trees which control surface flow in the watershed were perfectly happy with this little drizzle,” said Jim Adler, who lives three miles upriver and has been involved in river monitoring for years.
Adler measured .20 inches of rain in July, which is below his .57 July average but greater than eight of his 15 July measurements that he has conducted over the years.
Eight miles up the Yachats River, Bob Williams recorded .17 inches of rain in July – evidence that Monday’s weak rainstorm petered out as it went farther inland.
The one-day rainstorm dropped .28 inches of rain at the Yachats wastewater plant for a July total of .38 inches. The 10-year average for the month is .54 inches.
Adam Altson, who lives near the treatment plant, measured .32 inches of rain in July, for a seven-month total of 45.61 inches. That’s his highest total through July in his seven years of record-keeping.
Julie Bailey, a weather watcher who lives at the 200 foot elevation level on Radar Road, measured .41 inches of rain in July including .32 inches on Monday. She has recorded 53.10 inches of rain so far this year, compared with 40.2 inches for the same period of 2023.
Donald Tucker, a longtime weather watcher who lives two miles north of Yachats, recorded just .08 inches of rain in July. But Tucker’s total so far for 2024 is 56.61 inches of rain compared with his 19-year average of 40.69 inches for the first seven months of the year.
Other notes:
- Bailey recorded high temperatures of 86.4 degrees on July 5 and 84.9 degrees on July 6. There were 17 days over 70 degrees compared to last July when she recorded one 76 degree high but 21 days of temperatures of 70 degrees or more.
- Altson recorded a peak wind gust of 36 mph on July 16, his strongest gust ever for July. He also recorded a low temperature of 47 degrees that day “the lowest temperature I’ve ever recorded for July. The average low of 51.67 is also my lowest ever for July.”
- Tucker: “One significant item in my mind, is the continual micro-ratcheting increase in the average high temperature in almost any month. This July the average high temperature was up to 60.8 degrees.”