The Heat Continues...

Stage 1 of the City of Amarillo Drought Contingency Plan has been enacted. Tuesday, July 31, set an all-time single-day water consumption record for the City at 92.1 million gallons. The month of July also goes down as the highest ever monthly water consumption for the City with 2.39 billion gallons being consumed. The Consumption Reduction Goal for Stage 1 of the Drought Contingency Plan is a 5% reduction in consumption. To help towards that goal, the voluntary Watering Schedule is as follows: Designated days for outdoor watering are Sundays, Tuesdays or Thursdays if your address ends with an odd number and Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays if your address ends with an even number.

July has been a hot one. Rainfall totals amounted to only 0.26” for the month of July, which is 2.58” below normal for the month. Although the month of July brought high temperatures mostly in the 90s, there were eight total days where temperatures reached at or above 100 degrees and only three days were in the 80s. Current consensus is that the chance of El Nino developing by this fall is at least 65%. El Nino conditions would likely mean more precipitation, higher snowfall amounts in the winter, cooler temperatures, and more tornadoes in the spring across the Panhandles.