Mariton: 2015 Precipitation

by Tim Burris, Preserve Manager

At the end of the year, Mariton ended up with 49.34 inches of precipitation. The average from my data collection is 52.80″, so we are about 3.5 inches below average.  That isn’t cause for concern.  My data set ranges from 40.39” – 80.37” for annual totals.  There are eight years with less than 50.00” of precipitation.  In fact, from 1997 through 2002 every year’s precipitation was below 47.00”.  As recently as 2012, we only had 42.81” of precipitation for the entire year.

December really helped out the year’s total. We ended the month with 4.85”  (3.42” is average).  December was one of a handful of months that registered above average rainfall.  You may recall that the end of the year was little dreary.  I had measureable precipitation for 10 straight days at the end of December.

It will be interesting to see how el nino affects the coming year’s precipitation.  Both years of 1997-1998  (a very strong el nino) were well below average at Mariton.  For 2002-2003 (a moderate el nino), 2002 was dry and 2003 was really wet.  Both years of 2009-2010 (another moderate el nino) were pretty close to average.