Growing Degree Days 2015 - This Was the Year that Was Warm

The results are in, thanks to WSU AgWeathernet. And the winners are....well just about everybody. It was a really warm year and in the northwest warm years are good years. Even the Yakima Valley eked out over 3000 growing degree days, although their harvest was two weeks to a month behind the warmer AVAs. At Bonair Winery, it was a wrap on September 30. We continued to process Yakima Valley grapes through October for other wineries.

AVA	GDD	Rain
Wahluke	3807	1.43
Red Mountain	3664	1.99
Rattlesnake Hills	3185	1.14
Horse Heaven	3171	2.37
Walla Walla	3170	4.66
Yakima Valley	3096	1.67

Wahluke is always the winner, so no news there. Red Mountain was significantly warmer than the next three AVAs which were almost identical at around 3175 GDD. Red Mountain usually is not that much warmer, but this year it was almost 500 GDD warmer. Go figure that one.

The rain prize goes to Walla Walla which lies up against the Blue Mountains and the drought prize goes to the Rattlesnake Hills, usually the driest AVA in eastern Washington. Summer storms seem to avoid the AVA by going north, south, east, or west of the AVA.

The bulk of the state's wine grapes are produced in these six AVAs. If you are interested in the other AVAs, the data can be found at http://weather.wsu.edu/.