Water Cycle
By Gene Gade
Here's a gee whiz fact for ya...Did you know that, in most of Wyoming, if you left a container of water outside four times as much water would be lost to evaporation than would be replenished by precipitation? Whoa! Let me say that again in another way
With our low humidity, warm summers and wind, The amount of water that can be lost from the surface and through plants in Wyoming is four times greater than our precipitation...
so how does anything live in Wyoming? First of all, our plants and animals have to act fast and be really efficient
and, they have to go dormant and be really conservative for most of the year when it's dry. It's not just our cold winters that create our short growing seasons...it's drought!
Second, Wyoming is absolutely dependent on the 10 % or so of the state where precipitation normal exceeds evaporation -- namely the mountains and their winter snow pack
Many of our crops, such as corn, sugar beets and most alfalfa, would not be possible without the supplemental water that is caught in our reservoirs and used for irrigation
The great life-giving cycle of water -- evaporation from the surface:...
....to condensation and precipitation....
..and back to the sea...is as important in Wyoming as anywhere else on earth
We can only hope for more of those years when the gap between precipitation and water losses is narrow and like our wildland plants and animals, we have to use our scarce water resources wisely. I'm Gene Gade of the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service.