I need to go back to Severely Dry after sitting at Moderately Dry for several weeks. My station is at 0 for the month of October (only 5 days, however) and was at 37% of PRISM Normal for September (0.61" against Normal of 1.66"). Year to Date I am at 67% of PRISM Normal and Water Year to Date for 2025-2026 season ending 2026-09-30 I am t 65% of PRISM Normal, so pretty dry. Oddly enough all the local jurisdictions have gone to Stage 1 fire restrictions. Considering the current situation I am very surprised about and would feel more comfortable at Stage 2 restrictions - not my decision though. The landscape is looking like a typical fall, but accelerated by about 2 weeks. Most of the plants are dried up with only a few yarrow still blooming. There are plenty of rosettes in the meadow for next year so maybe if we get a good winter snowpack they will do well. The aspens for the most part are finishing their fall colors with a few exceptions in wetter micro-environments. I am still getting a lot of birds to the birdbaths, but the hummingbirds have finally left, the last one left sometime last week. Ponderosa pines seem to be ok for the most part but might be showing signs of stress due to a large number of old needles coming off the branches. This is normal but it seems like more are coming off this year. The three river gauges I follow are all running well below historical averages, ~50% or less.