Step-by-Step Guide

Understanding Water Restrictions

Water restrictions are becoming the rule rather than the exception across the country as summer approaches. Weather Track controllers are designed to obey any water restrictions seen anywhere in the country, ensuring compliance while maintaining smart water management.

Water restrictions typically include two main components: restrictions on which days you can irrigate and restrictions on what times of day irrigation is allowed. For example, Las Vegas water restrictions prohibit watering on Sundays and restrict irrigation between 11 AM and 7 PM to prevent evaporation during the heat of the day. Denver Water enforces three-day-per-week watering schedules with similar time restrictions.

Water districts enforce these restrictions through fines and penalties. Properties that violate water restrictions can face significant fines, particularly for watering on prohibited days or outside allowed time windows. This makes proper controller programming essential for avoiding both financial penalties and public violations.

Programming Water Day Mode

Water Day Mode defines which days Weather Track can allow irrigation. The controller offers five different water day mode options to accommodate various restriction types.

1. Navigate to the Program page on weathertrack.net and select Days and Times.

2. Select your Water Day Mode from the available options:

Optimized by Weather Track: This option allows smart schedules to decide which day they will irrigate. By default, this includes one non-water day (designed for maintenance days when mowing crews need dry conditions). This mode is ideal when you have no water restrictions or only a single excluded day like "no watering on Sunday."

Odd or Even: This mode corresponds to calendar dates. If your property address ends in an odd number, irrigation occurs on odd-numbered dates (1st, 3rd, 5th, etc.). If your address ends in an even number, irrigation occurs on even-numbered dates. This restriction type is common in many municipalities.

Water Day Interval: This option allows irrigation every specified number of days (every 3rd day, every 4th day, etc.). You can set intervals as long as every 31st day for once-monthly watering. Some municipalities assign properties to groups (such as square, circle, or triangle) that water on rotating schedules, and this mode accommodates those restrictions.

Days of the Week: This is the most common restriction type. Select specific days of the week when irrigation is allowed (for example, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday only). This mode is used in Beverly Hills, Denver, and many other municipalities. In Las Vegas, different groups water on different day combinations—Group A might water Monday, Wednesday, Friday while Group B waters Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday—to distribute water demand across the valley's treatment system.

Days of the Week by Month: This advanced option allows different day-of-week schedules for different months. For example, a property might be allowed five days per week from April through October but only three days per week from November through March. Once programmed, the controller automatically adjusts the schedule as months change without requiring manual intervention.

3. If using Optimized by Weather Track, select your exclusion day (non-water day) from the dropdown menu.

4. If using Days of the Week, check the boxes next to each allowed watering day.

5. If using Water Day Interval, enter the number of days between watering cycles.

Understanding Midnight Crossover

Be aware of how your local water restrictions handle the midnight crossover. Some water restrictions are very strict about the midnight cutoff—if they specify you can only water on Wednesday, they mean the 24-hour period from midnight Wednesday to midnight Thursday.

Weather Track does not automatically stop irrigation at midnight. Any start time will allow all irrigation for that start time to complete, even if it crosses midnight into a prohibited day. This is critical to understand to avoid violations.

If your water restrictions enforce strict midnight-to-midnight day definitions, ensure your start times and water windows are configured so that all irrigation completes before midnight. This prevents your system from running into a prohibited day and triggering fines.

Configuring Start Times and Water Windows

Start times and water windows define when during the day irrigation is allowed. The start time is when your program will absolutely begin, and the water window is the duration of time following that start when irrigation can occur.

1. In the Days and Times section of your program, locate the Start Time field.

2. Enter the time when irrigation should begin. For example, if your restriction prohibits watering between 11 AM and 7 PM, set your start time to 7:00 PM.

3. Set your Water Window duration. This is the number of hours following the start time during which irrigation is allowed.

4. Calculate your water window carefully. If you cannot irrigate between 11 AM and 7 PM, you have a 16-hour window available (7 PM to 11 AM the next day). Set your water window to 16 hours.

5. Weather Track will stop irrigation when the water window expires, even if not all irrigation is complete. If it reaches 11 AM in this example, irrigation will absolutely stop.

Managing Water Day Alerts

If you restrict the days irrigation is allowed, you may receive a Water Day Alert. This alert appears only for controllers running stations in Auto mode (the automated ET-based schedule).

A Water Day Alert means the controller's ET-based irrigation schedule wants more days to irrigate than your water restrictions allow. For example, the system may calculate that it needs five days of irrigation to keep up with evapotranspiration, but your local restrictions only permit three days per week.

This is not a critical alert. When you have local water restrictions, you must always obey those restrictions regardless of what the ET science indicates. Weather Track will always abide by your programmed restrictions. If the system cannot irrigate as much as it calculates is needed, it will continue to accumulate depletion tracking, and when irrigation is next allowed, it will do its best to catch up.

Managing Water Window Alerts

If you restrict the time available for irrigation, you may receive a Water Window Alert. This alert indicates that you restricted the amount of time available to irrigate and the controller wanted more time than you allowed.

For example, if the controller calculated it needs 17 hours of irrigation but your water window only allows 16 hours, you will receive this alert.

When a water window alert occurs, Weather Track will do its best to complete as much irrigation as possible within the allowed time. The system uses intelligent strategies to maximize water delivery:

Any station that needs irrigation will receive at least some water. Weather Track will not simply leave your last few stations high and dry.

The controller will incrementally turn down all stations to ensure each station gets some irrigation rather than fully watering some stations while completely skipping others.

For stations on Automated by Weather Track mode, the system tracks how thirsty each station is and carries depletion information over to the next watering day, ensuring catch-up irrigation occurs when time is available.

Finding More Time: Stack vs. Overlap Mode

Weather Track controllers offer strategies to find more time in the night for irrigation, which is essential when water windows are restricted. The first strategy involves understanding Stack and Overlap modes.

Weather Track LC controllers have two programs, while Pro 3 controllers have eight programs. Weather Track has the capacity to run multiple programs simultaneously to find extra minutes and maximize irrigation efficiency.

Stack Mode (Default)

Weather Track comes in Stack mode by default. In Stack mode:

All programs share the same start time and water window.

You can still differentiate Water Day Mode by program.

The system runs only one station at a time, assuming you have hydraulic capacity for only one station.

This is the safe, out-of-the-box configuration that works for most basic installations.

Overlap Mode

1. Navigate to Setup in your Weather Track interface.

2. Change the mode from Stack to Overlap.

3. Once changed to Overlap, all programs open up with independent configuration options.

In Overlap mode, each program can have its own start time and water window. This allows you to manage different areas at different times—for example, watering football fields at a different time than baseball fields on a high school campus.

More importantly, Overlap mode unlocks the ability to run multiple programs at the same time. If programs share time in the water window, Weather Track will attempt to run two, three, or even all eight programs simultaneously. This is hugely valuable for saving time and fitting more irrigation into restricted water windows.

Managing Hydraulic Capacity in Overlap Mode

When using Overlap mode to run multiple stations simultaneously, you must ensure you do not exceed your system's hydraulic capacity. Running too many stations at once can overtax your main line and reduce pressure, affecting distribution uniformity.

If you have a flow sensor, use flow visibility to monitor your system's capacity in real-time. Flow sensors make managing overlap much easier by providing immediate feedback.

If you do not have a flow sensor, use this manual testing method:

1. Label each station as Small, Medium, or Large based on water demand. Typically, drip zones are Small, spray zones are Medium, and rotor zones are Large.

2. Separate stations into different programs based on these size categories.

3. Identify the largest drip station, the largest spray station, and the largest rotor station in your system.

4. Turn on these three largest stations simultaneously (one Small, one Medium, one Large).

5. Observe whether your system maintains adequate pressure and distribution uniformity with all three running.

6. If the system handles the three largest stations without pressure loss or poor distribution, you can safely run one station from each size category simultaneously. You can mix and match any Small, Medium, and Large station together without affecting system performance.

By running three stations at once using this method, you save significant time and can fit more irrigation into restricted water windows.

Using OptiFlow for Complex Sites

The most advanced solution for battling restricted water windows is the OptiFlow system. OptiFlow is designed for large or complex sites with multiple controllers and significant hydraulic capacity.

OptiFlow allows all controllers on a site to work together as a coordinated system. You program the design capacity of your main line (how much water it can deliver), and OptiFlow hand-selects which stations to run together to keep your system operating at capacity.

How OptiFlow Works

1. Program your system's maximum flow capacity into OptiFlow (for example, 600 gallons per minute).

2. OptiFlow knows how many gallons per minute each individual station uses.

3. The system develops an irrigation program that runs as many stations simultaneously as your hydraulic capacity allows.

4. OptiFlow keeps your system running as close to capacity as possible for as long as possible, delivering the mathematically shortest possible runtime.

OptiFlow can manage up to eight stations per controller on the OptiFlow network. For a site with eight controllers, OptiFlow could run as many as 64 stations simultaneously on a looped main line to maintain that 600-gallon-per-minute capacity.

This system is ideal for master-planned communities, large commercial properties, parks, schools, and other complex sites where multiple controllers must coordinate to avoid water restriction violations. OptiFlow ensures you get all required irrigation completed within restricted water windows while maximizing system efficiency.

Understanding Schedule Recalculation

Weather Track recalculates and rebuilds its irrigation schedule at every start time. The system does not resume where it left off if a water window expires before all irrigation is complete.

For example, if your water window stops at valve five, the next start time will not automatically begin at valve five. Instead, Weather Track recalculates the entire schedule to ensure all stations receive some water rather than leaving later stations completely dry.

The system prioritizes distributing available water across all stations that need irrigation, incrementally reducing runtimes if necessary, rather than fully watering some stations while skipping others entirely. This ensures more uniform landscape health even when water windows are insufficient for complete irrigation cycles.

Additional Resources and Support

Weather Track training and support resources are available to help you manage water restrictions and optimize your irrigation programming.

For questions about Weather Track programming, contact:

HydroPoint Customer Support: Call the 800 number or email support@hydropoint.com

If you are in a market served by Ewing Irrigation, your local Ewing support team can also provide assistance with Weather Track programming and water restriction compliance.

Both the Ewing support team and the HydroPoint support team are available to help you navigate water restrictions, optimize water windows, and ensure your irrigation system operates in full compliance with local regulations.

Video Walkthrough

Video originally published June 2021.

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