Just how wet was second driest year.

Byline: Scott Maben The Register-Guard

Officially, 2004 was the second driest year of the past half century in Eugene. Unofficially, it may not have been that bad.

The National Weather Service station at the Eugene Airport has captured about 31.5 inches of rain in 2004. That's less than two-thirds of normal, and the only drier year since the mid-1950s was 2001, with 27.7 inches.

Although a rain gauge change at the airport in 1996 has put recent weather data under a cloud of suspicion, there is no doubt it was a dry year in the Willamette Valley, state climatologist George Taylor said.

The last half of last winter was unusually dry, and the same was true for the last two months of the year, Taylor said.

"I'm just hoping we have a very wet second half of the winter," he said.

As head of the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University, Taylor doesn't entirely trust the accuracy of the airport station, the official weather data site for Eugene. Since the weather service installed an automated rain gauge in a different location there, the city's annual rainfall has been 20 percent to 25 percent below that of nearby weather stations.

Much of the year-end data has yet to be compiled, but one station near Eugene reports 12 inches more rainfall than the airport.

The Lookout Point gauge in Lowell, operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, showed more than 43.5 inches for 2004. That's due in part to its position, at a slightly higher elevation and in the Cascade foothills.

Regardless of the numbers, there were some surprisingly wet months last year. August through October brought more rain than usual statewide, Taylor said.

"August ended up being a fairly wet month," he said.

But in Eugene, the weather service recorded 0.95 inches in August, up only slightly from the average of 0.8 inches.

Taylor said it seemed like spring and fall arrived early in 2004.

"It's almost like the seasons were shifted forward this year," he said. "We had an early onset of spring in March and April, and early onset of fall in August and September. I'm not sure what that means, but it's quite interesting."