TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – Residents and visitors to Mount Lemmon are breathing a sigh of relief.
A wet August and September got Summerhaven out of Stage III water restrictions, and a heavy rainstorm early this week added to the water supply.
Water is running through Summerhaven’s creek, days after rain fell in the area.
“Yeah, it’s been a while since we’ve seen anything like that,” said Grey Carpenter, a Summerhaven resident.
The monsoon brought Mount Lemmon around 20 inchess of rain.
“The mountain’s kind of like a sponge; it absorbs the water really well, and that amount of water will last us for a good while,” Carpenter said.
A wet August and September got Summerhaven out of Stage III water restrictions, and a heavy rainstorm early this week added to the water supply.(13 News)
Carpenter called the rain a relief following years of restrictions.
“We were kind of on and off for the past couple of years. We were in restrictions last year, then we went out – not totally. We went into voluntary, which is like Stage II, then we went back into Stage III again,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter lives on the mountain, owns the general store and serves on the Mount Lemmon Water District board. He said he has had to greatly restrict the water he uses, from doing dishes and laundry to showering.
“It kind of gets old after a while. It’s nice to be out of that, you know, and to be kind of relaxed a little bit about it,” he said.
A wet August and September got Summerhaven out of Stage III water restrictions, and a heavy rainstorm early this week added to the water supply.(13 News)Not enough to last through winter
While seeing the water has been a relief, Carpenter said it is still not enough to last through the winter.
“If it doesn’t snow, if we have another dry winter, we’ll be right back in the same boat next year, guaranteed,” Carpenter said.
Summerhaven relies on back-to-back precipitation, and snow is more important for the mountain to receive than rain.
“That rain largely runs off the surface. The rocks there only have fractures that a little bit seeps in,” said Victor Baker, a hydrology professor at the University of Arizona.
Baker said snow, on the other hand, means a slower saturation of water into the ground with less runoff.
A wet August and September got Summerhaven out of Stage III water restrictions, and a heavy rainstorm early this week added to the water supply.(13 News)
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