Most areas of San Antonio saw less than an inch of rain Monday morning, and there’s no more precipitation forecast in the coming days.
Put another way: the drought continues.
But despite the lingering dry weather, most residents can and should start slowing down on their landscape watering starting now, said Karen Guz, director of water conservation for the San Antonio Water System.
Monday’s showers boosted the year’s recorded rainfall to 8.8 inches, up from 8.2 inches the day before. But this year’s rainfall total is the lowest total for this point in the year since the weather service started keeping records in 1886, said Andrew Quigley, a forecaster with the National Weather Service.
The last record low for this time of year was in 1954, at 11.3 inches. That was in the middle of what is considered Texas’ drought of record, from 1949-1957. If this were a normal year for rainfall, the city would have seen more than 26 inches so far.
But don’t let the dryness fool you, Guz said. San Antonio residents should slow the rate at which they water their lawns as we head into winter, for two unrelated reasons.
One is financial.
SAWS uses a household’s water consumption from November through March to annually determine its sewage charges for the following year. Those are traditionally the months with the lightest water use, Guz said, and it pays to keep it that way.
She acknowledged that the region hasn’t yet seen enough cool weather or precipitation to cool down soil temperatures, delaying true fall conditions, but the growth rate of warm-season plants and grasses has already slowed.
“People may notice their lawns are less green,” she said of warm weather varieties common in San Antonio such as St. Augustine, Bermuda, zoysia and buffalo.
That’s a result of the slowdown — and more water won’t help. Fertilizing warm-weather plants at this time is also a waste, she said.
What more water and fertilizer will do instead is encourage the growth of cool-weather plants and weeds that have been lying dormant all summer, like dandelions, thistles and henbit.
She also warned against resodding warm-weather grasses in the fall. Many residents may want to freshen their lawns up after the beating they took this summer, she said, but fall is not the time.
“If your HOA is asking, push back,” Guz said, and wait until early spring.
Now is the time to plant evergreen shrubs and trees, as the cooler weather will allow them time to grow strong roots before another brutal summer arrives. But don’t rely on irrigation systems to water those new plantings, Guz said — hand-watering is more efficient.
She suggested using the holidays, or about every four weeks over the fall and winter, as a good time to check in whether a landscape needs watering. If the yard has gotten even one good soak, that’s likely enough, she said.
San Antonio remains in Stage 2 watering restrictions, so if residents do need to water, those using an irrigation system, sprinkler or soaker hose may only do so on their designated day of the week, as determined by their home address.
Of course, all this assumes that San Antonio will see a fall season beyond the midweek cool front. Quigley said that by the weekend, winds will have swung back from north to south/southeast, bringing higher temperatures with them. He said it will likely reach the mid-80s by Saturday.
The weather service’s climate prediction center continues to forecast higher than normal fall and winter temps along with below-normal rainfall, the result of the La Niña weather pattern.
La Niña usually alternates with El Niño, which brings cooler, wetter conditions to the southern U.S., along with an increase in the likelihood of severe flooding. Generally, El Niño occurs more frequently than La Niña, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
San Antonio experienced record-setting heat this summer. May, June, July and August were each San Antonio’s hottest on record, combining to make for the region’s hottest summer on record.
Despite the lingering heat, Guz said she and her conservation team at SAWS are still hopeful that they’ll be able to disseminate the utility’s usual messaging this fall and winter: dial back the watering and “see if nature provides.”
