Winter is here on MV and precipitation wrap up

Whenever the rain was not falling we either had a great day in the 40's even 50's or it was really cold and windy. We peaked yesterday with 10 degrees but parts of the island were low single digits and a strong wind made it feel even worse. Luckily the grass had a dusting of snow which might have helped insulate it somewhat. The good part of the cold weather is that it makes it easier to get some tree work done. We have many trees that have died this year either from ants, wasps, drought, old age or a combination. You can see the rot on this hollow stump in the picture below. With the age of our course and subsequently the trees on it this is going to be more common every year.

right side of 1 green

First hole getting its first coating of the season

I told you in the last post I would share the weather data. I went out on a limb at the end of the summer and predicted we would have a wet Fall. It turned out to be a very nice one actually but the end of the year was murky at best. We had over 7 inches of rain in Nov. and then again in Dec. My prediction was not an attempt to play weather man but simply a common sense review of my personal rain total spreadsheet since my arrival in 1995. The numbers do not lie. I have seen some very dry stretches at all times of the year but in the end the total is pretty close, so I was gambling that 2014 would be the same. The good news is we survived a very dry summer and the precip in Dec. was mostly rain and not snow.

Rain totals spreadsheet

 The sheet is straightforward where the monthly total is listed and then totaled for the year at the bottom. You can compare month to month and year to year. You can also compare them to the 19 year average which is the column to the right. These do not show the full story however so the bottom two rows are the irrigated months separated out. 2014 for the year was roughly 4" below the average but not the lowest year even in this abridged graphic (04-14). Separating the irrigated months tells a truer story because a dry January is completely different than a dry June. You can see the two arrows I placed showing the two lowest years and compare them to other years. By that measure we were down 10" from the average in 2014 and that is more reflective of the season we had.