How WeatherTRAK Handles Drought Management
If you’re a WeatherTRAK customer heading into drought conditions, this page is for you. Your WeatherTRAK system already has the tools to help you stay compliant, manage water budgets, protect landscapes, and respond to changing restrictions. This page walks through exactly how to use them — what to configure, what reports to pull, what alerts to enable, and where to find the help articles that take you deeper.
Whether your water agency has tightened day-of-week rules, cut your allocation, or asked for proof of compliance, WeatherTRAK gives you what you need — if you know where to look. Start with the quick-start checklist below, or jump to the specific feature you want to optimize.
Need help configuring your WeatherTRAK for drought?
Our customer support team can talk through your sites with you. Email Support.
Your Drought-Season Checklist
- Confirm your water agency’s current drought program
- Check your agency’s latest drought status, allowed watering days, and water windows. Note any tier threshold changes or allocation cuts.
- Update your water window and day-of-week settings in WeatherTRAK Central
- Push the updates across all your controllers at once. No need to visit each site.
- Set or refresh your water budgets
- Enter updated monthly or annual budgets in Budget Manager. Configure current tier thresholds so the system alerts you before you go over.
- Run the Estimated Usage Report
- Identify your highest-consumption zones — the ones where reductions will have the biggest impact.
- Review and adjust your % Adjust settings
- Station-by-station, dial in the reductions that protect what matters most. High-value trees and specimen plantings stay at full priority; lower-priority turf gets dialed back.
- Confirm your alert recipients are current
- Make sure leak, flow, and compliance alerts go to people who can actually act on them.
- Verify OptiFlow and cycle-and-soak are enabled
- If you have OptiFlow, confirm it’s active. Check cycle-and-soak settings on any zones that are prone to runoff.
- Document your configuration
- Pull the current compliance tracking report and save it. This becomes your baseline if your agency or clients ask for proof later in the season.
Need help with any of these? The Customer Support team can walk through your sites together — reach out anytime.
Resources
Navigate the Drought with Confidence: 8 Ways WeatherTRAK Delivers
Everything you need to plan, respond, and document during drought season.
Creating Sustainable and Resilient Sites Ebook
A broader site resilience framework for protecting properties from drought and climate-driven issues.
Knowledgebase
WeatherTRAK Help Center
Step-by-step articles on scheduling, compliance, alerts, budgets, reports, and more. Your first stop for how-to.
Features to Know and Optimize During Drought
Your WeatherTRAK system likely has more drought-ready capability than you’re currently using. Here’s a walk-through of the features that matter most during a restricted season — what they do, when to reach for them, and where to learn more.
Weather-Based (ET) Scheduling
The core of how your WeatherTRAK system decides when and how much to water.
Apply only the water plants actually need, every day
WeatherTRAK’s weather-based smart scheduling tracks the exact water requirement of each landscape station based on local weather data and time of year. During drought conditions, this means no guesswork, no over-application, and no violation risk from running outdated schedules. The current depletion model ensures precise application — and the look-ahead feature makes sure irrigation always runs on allowable days, even under tight day-of-week restrictions.
Learn more: WeatherTRAK ET-based scheduling
OptiFlow Optimization
The feature that turns restricted water windows from a constraint into a design advantage.
Fit more irrigation into less time — without runoff
When your water window shrinks from 8 hours to 4 hours overnight, OptiFlow makes every minute count. It maximizes flow by safely overlapping multiple programs and stations simultaneously, while cycle-and-soak scheduling prevents runoff — proven to reduce runoff by 71% in a California EPA study. OptiFlow is exclusive to WeatherTRAK and is one of the reasons compliance teams trust the platform during tight restriction periods.
Learn more: Getting Started with OptiFlow
WeatherTRAK Central & Mobile App — Portfolio Remote Management
The central command platform for multi-site drought response.
Push restriction updates across every controller, from anywhere
When restrictions change, WeatherTRAK Central lets you update scheduling, water windows, and day-of-week rules across your entire portfolio simultaneously — no truck rolls required. The Compliance tab helps you keep track of your water agency’s latest drought program. Detailed change history reports give you a full audit trail of every adjustment, and time-stamped compliance tracking reports certify each site’s status for agency and client review.
Learn more: WeatherTRAK Central
Budget Manager — Real-Time Water Budget Tracking
Built specifically for teams managing allocations, tiered rates, and cost exposure during drought.
See budget performance before the bill arrives
Budget Manager lets teams establish site baselines, set monthly or annual water budgets, and configure water agency tier thresholds. Actual usage is tracked daily via flow sensors or manual meter/bill entry and compared against targets in real time. The Budget Account and Budget Site Reports show whether you’re on track — down to the individual site — so overages get caught while there’s still time to act.
Learn more: WeatherTRAK Budget Manager
Compliance Tracking & Reporting
The proof layer for water agencies, clients, and internal stakeholders.
Document every change, every irrigation event, every site
WeatherTRAK’s compliance reporting gives water management teams a time-stamped audit trail of programming changes, runtime data, and agency rule adherence. When your water agency asks for proof of compliance, the report is already there. When your client asks why the landscape looks different this month, the data tells the story. Reduce liability, increase visibility, and spend less time building spreadsheets.
Learn more: WeatherTRAK Central compliance reports
Estimated Usage Report & Station-Level Controls
The data and the tools to decide which zones get protected first.
Know every station’s water footprint — and adjust it in seconds
The Estimated Usage Report shows exactly how much water each station uses based on plant type and sprinkler type, giving teams the data to prioritize zones during restriction. The % Adjust feature allows station-by-station reductions so mature trees, high-value landscaping, and featured areas receive priority, while lower-priority turf and annual plantings are dialed back. WeatherTRAK supports up to eight unique watering programs — enough to reflect any site’s drought priority structure.
Learn more: Using Percentage Adjust
Alerts & Leak Detection
Catch problems before they become compliance violations or wasted water.
Get notified immediately when something goes wrong
WeatherTRAK’s automated alerts notify teams via email or text the moment a leak, break, flow anomaly, or compliance issue is detected. During drought, when every gallon counts and every violation matters, real-time alerts mean problems get solved in hours, not weeks — without requiring a site visit to catch them.
Learn more: Viewing & Clearing Alerts
WeatherTRAK Drought FAQs
WeatherTRAK Central enforces agency-mandated water windows and day-of-week restrictions automatically — controllers only run during approved times. The Compliance tab tracks your water agency’s current drought program, and time-stamped compliance reports give you a full audit trail of every programming change and irrigation event. When restrictions change, updates can be pushed across your entire portfolio remotely — reducing compliance risk without site visits.
OptiFlow is a WeatherTRAK technology that maximizes the amount of irrigation that can safely complete within a restricted water window. It overlaps multiple programs and stations simultaneously based on your system’s hydraulic capacity, and pairs with cycle-and-soak scheduling to prevent runoff — proven to reduce runoff by 71% in a California EPA study. During drought, when your water window may be cut in half, OptiFlow is what keeps your landscape covered.
Start with WeatherTRAK’s Estimated Usage Report — it shows exactly how much water each station uses based on plant type and sprinkler type. Identify the highest-consumption zones and decide which can tolerate more stress. Mature trees, specimen plantings, and featured entries should usually stay at full priority; turf and annual plantings can typically be dialed back 20–30% for several weeks without long-term damage. Use the % Adjust feature to apply station-level reductions, and consider setting up separate watering programs (up to 8 are supported) that reflect your drought priorities. This approach lets you hit agency targets while protecting what matters most.
Yes. WeatherTRAK Central is built for portfolio-wide management. Scheduling, water window, and day-of-week settings can be updated and pushed across all controllers simultaneously. Change History Reporting documents every adjustment for audit purposes, giving water management teams both speed and accountability during rapidly changing restriction periods.
Use Budget Manager inside WeatherTRAK Central. Establish a site baseline, enter a monthly or annual water budget, and configure the water agency’s tier thresholds. Actual water use is tracked daily — via flow sensors or manual meter/bill entry — and compared against your target in real time. The Budget Account and Budget Site Reports show exactly where you stand, so you can act before overages happen.
Make the Most of Your WeatherTRAK This Drought Season
You’ve invested in a smart irrigation platform built for exactly this — a season where every gallon counts, every restriction matters, and every configuration decision shows up in the water bill. Use the checklist, lean on the knowledgebase, and reach out to customer support whenever you need a hand. We’re here to help you get the most out of the system you already have.