YACHATS – The Yachats area received the second-most rainfall in 15 years in September and coupled with steady rain Monday and Tuesday proved to be enough to ease city water restrictions.
The Yachats city council decided Thursday to end the city’s phase 1 water restrictions. After a heavy late-September rainstorm and another downpour early this week, Yachats water supervisor Rick McClung recommended the city end its modest restrictions.
The city instituted the restrictions in mid-September when the Yachats River flow dipped below 35 cubic feet per second, and the combined flows of Reedy and Salmon was less than 275 gallons per minute.
But 3 to 6 inches of rain – depending on where it was measured – that fell mostly over four days in late September was followed by nearly a half to one inch of rain again Monday and Tuesday.
On Tuesday, McClung said the flows of Reedy and Salmon creeks were at 475 gallons per second Tuesday, enough to give him confidence to make the recommendation.
Jim Adler, who lives three miles up the Yachats River near Reedy Creek, measured 6.03 inches of rain in September — and then another .93 inches Monday and Tuesday. It was the second wettest September in Adler’s 15 years of recording weather. His September average over those years is 2.87 inches.
Adler has measured 55.02 inches of rain for the first nine months of the year.
Bob Williams, who lives eight miles up the Yachats River, recorded 5.18 inches of rain in September ahs has 66.42 inches for the year.
But Adler, who has monitored Yachats River flows for years, said the effect of the late-September storm may be short-lived.
“Remember that this is a small watershed and the systems within it are very flashy — the Yachats River went from 80 cubic feet per second to under 20 cubic feet per second while it was still raining and we’re looking at some hot weather coming up with October’s average rainfall only slightly above September’s,” he said. “Maybe what you can celebrate is the possible end of fire season, but even that’s a crapshoot.
“The biggest benefit we got from this storm was that it flushed out the colony of bacteria in the upper reach of the Yachats estuary which had deoxygenated the water column and made it impassable for spawning salmon,” Alder said.
But others who monitor weather for YachatsNews recorded similar strong readings in September.
At the Yachats wastewater treatment plant, the city recorded 3.43 inches of rain in September for a 10-month total of 37.65 inches. The September average is 2.56 inches of rain. It had another .43 inches this week.
Adam Altson, who leaves near the treatment plant, measured 3.91 inches and has 40.62 inches for the year.
“Of that, 3.11 inches fell over four days from Sept. 23-26,” he said. “It’s worth noting that the meteorological rainfall year runs Oct. 1 to Sep 30, and I measured 62.68 inches of rain for the meteorological year.”
Julie Bailey, who lives at the 220 foot level of Radar Road in Yachats, measured 4.41 inches of rain in September — of which 4.12 was from the storm starting on Sept. 22 – and has 45.11 inches for the year. Bailey recorded 12 days with temperatures of 70 degrees or more.
Don Tucker, who lives two miles north of Yachats and on the east side of U.S. Highway 101 recorded 4.74 inches of rain in September and has 41.67 inches for the year. Over 17 years of records, Tucker’s September average is 2.73 inches of rain with a nine-month average of 43.42 inches.
His total for the meteorological rain year was 65.11 inches.
“The high temperature at my house was 72 on Sept. 24 and the month’s average high was 63.7 degrees,” Tucker said. “In summary, looking over the last 17 years, we are still seeing warming temps and decreasing rain amounts.”