Bier en modder

There’s a number of us, myself included, that have been lamenting the lack of rainfall this year. You could make a (valid) argument to shut up and just ride but let’s face it – riding in the mud is much more interesting than on dry ground. I won’t necessarily say ‘fun’ but just different, and in my opinion, challenging.

After what looked like a promising start to the water year (defined as Oct to Sept), it’s been basically dry. But historically though, each year has it’s ups and downs. I compiled the rainfall data for the past 4 years, loking at rainfall depths over a 24-hour and 7-day period.

2004 is the first year I have any reference to, having started in the beginners that year. With the exception of Barton Park on 11/6 and Nationals at the end of the season, it was a fairly dry year.

2005 was more interesting. We had an off-week during the most intense period of rain but it kept Barton and Estacata pretty well saturated for the rest of the season. I didn’t take the data past the end of the year, but as you can see, the late December rainfall was pretty intense.

The 2006 season had the epic rainfall during November. For those in the water resource business, we have classified the November ‘06 event as a 5-year event – which is to say there’s about a 20% chance of something like this occurring each year. We peaked out at nearly 8 inches of rain in the week before Estacata.

It’s interesting to note though that the USGP finals was really where the rain and mud took it’s toll although the really intense rain had died down for a week. There’s another term we use – antecedent conditions – that generally describes how saturated the ground is. Rainfall during dry conditions tends to soak right in, which is why big early season events typically don’t cause much flooding. Depending on the soils, it can take days or weeks for an area to get fully saturated. But once fully wet, even a little rain can cause problems. By the time the USGP finals rolled around everything was good and wet and that weekend rainfall was like icing on the cake. Whatever rain fell had nowhere to soak in.

This year, by most accounts, is a hydrologic dud. We’ve had some good stretches of dry weather and whatever rain that did fall in early October is long gone. Shifting the schedule to get a more muddy Barton Park race unfortunately didn’t work. Even the Rainier race which took place after our most intense rain of the season wasn’t all that bad. Failing an intense storm from the Pineapple Express, Hillsboro may look more like the early-season race we had there last year instead of the epic mudbath.

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