Watering Alert Summary

As of this week, we’ve concluded our season of weekly watering alerts! As the summer comes to a close, and the trees will begin to transition into the colder months, let’s recap this past summer and late spring, and remember the reasons why we provide this very important information.

As the Washington Post reported, we had a hot summer this year – so hot, in fact, it was the third hottest on record (behind 2010 and 2011, the other top two)! Precipitation for the summer was only 76% of the “normal” average, and the drought conditions that plagued us prior to the beginning of June continued for the majority of the summer. With 48 days of 90+ degree heat, and 11 of those days consecutive without any reprieve, these drought conditions made sense – but didn’t help keep the District’s trees watered and healthy.  To add to the difficulties of the summer weather and temperature, there were nearly 20 days of “code orange” or worse air quality days (measured by ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide through the AQI index).

This summer’s heat was of specific concern to the Tree Planting department’s High School Summer Crew - they knew their work this year was going to be specifically important. As Jim Woodworth said: “For Summer Crew, the weather was definitely a motivator reinforcing the necessity of the work and helping keep sites on the watering goal.  And, despite triple digit days, teams met and exceeded their overall watering goal even when we worked 2/3rds of a day.” And he’s right – though the summer had 8 days of 100+ degree temperatures limiting their capacity to be out in the field, the Summer Crew managed to compile 6,050 “tree touches” from July through the first few days of August. The Crew even went through tryouts and was chosen with the summer’s swelter in mind: June 19th, the final-cut deadline for recruits, was a “code orange” day with temperatures almost in the 90s.

This summer’s drought conditions made watering a key priority for our work – but helping you to remember the importance and necessity of watering is just as crucial to success as our ability to tend to trees. Remember, watering can be a simple process (through the use of any number of bags, tubs, or “Tubes”) and is absolutely required to help maintain our current canopy, and help young trees grow!

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