Updated: I posted without reading this first. Sorry.
Fred sent photos and text in December. I'm a bit slow these days : -) You can use the links, though, to find water info from more recent rains.
All photos and text by Fred Heath.
Although we had roughly a half inch of rain on the night of December 21st through the middle of the 22nd and another half inch on the night of December 24th, the effects of the two rain events on Sabino Creek flow were very different, as can be seen by the photographs comparing Bridge one and Bear Bridge on December 22nd and 25th. This can also been seen graphically at the following website which shows the water flow and precipitation at Sabino Dam https://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?site_no=09484000.
Heather Murphy supplied the following link (Pima) which answered the question as to why the discrepancy. The rain gauge on Mt Lemmon showed almost 2.6 inches of rain over Dec 21-22 and none over Dec 24-25. I don’t know exactly how the rain gauges work, but as it was well below freezing on Dec 24-25, the precipitation was all in the form of snow which didn’t get measured. The rain gauge on Mt Lemmon registered 0.48 inches in the middle of the day on the Dec 26, when there was no rain, but the snow was melting.
It all goes to show the obvious, that one has to look at the bigger picture of the whole mountain and not just Sabino Canyon Recreation Area. Also, like Las Vegas, what happens on Mt Lemmon stays on Mt. Lemmon (at least until the snow melts).
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| 12/22/2016 |
Bear Canyon Bridge 12/22/2016
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| 12/25/2016 |
Bear Canyon Bridge 12/25/2016
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| 12/22/2016 |
Bridge one 12/22/2016
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| 12/25/2016 |
Bridge one 12/25/2016
Thanks, Fred (and Heather)!
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