January breaks 10-year precipitation record

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By Grace McCarthy

Heavy precipitation swept over Whatcom County last week, continuing the trend of a wet winter for Blaine and Birch Bay.

The rain from last week echoes the weather seen in January, said Mike Sowers, operations manager of Birch Bay Water and Sewage District (BBWSD) in an email to The Northern Light.

The precipitation between Monday, January 27 to Sunday, February 2 held the highest weekly average for the month of January with 3.82 inches of rain. Two weeks prior, Monday, January 13 to Sunday, January 19 saw the least amount of rain with a weekly average of .23 inches.

January broke a monthly precipitation record with 9.21 inches, according to data from the BBWSD. This is a 23.3 percent increase from the previous record of 7.47 inches in January 2011. The monthly precipitation records have only been tracked automatically since 2010, so January’s record could extend further than the past decade.

“We’re over double our average precipitation for January,” Sowers said. The 10-year monthly precipitation average for January is 4.56 inches.

The driest January was 2017 with a precipitation average of 1.79 inches.

When the rain hit last week, all of the BBSWD’s machines went into service, something Sowers said doesn’t happen often. System upgrades made in the past few years have allowed the district to better manage the increased rain.

The past week was the first time Sowers saw back-to-back days where over two million gallons of water came into the small treatment plant. January 31 and February 1, also the only days in the past month that exceeded 2 million gallons, were made even more significant because February 1 had nearly 3 million gallons.

“Overall, we came out doing pretty well,” Sowers said of his department’s ability to troubleshoot the increased rainfall.

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