If you saw bottles of water being handed out at Washington University’s graduation this morning, your eyes were not deceiving you. While the school does indeed have a ban on bottled water sales and distribution on campus, it temporarily lifted the ban today for commencement.

WashU spokeswoman Sue McGinn tells me that usually, the school has 15,000 bottles of water on hand for graduation day. A bottle is placed on the chair of every graduate and faculty member. Also, bottles are handed out to guests.

But this morning, the school only had 4,000 bottles on hand — and those were just for guests.

“We will have limited amounts of bottled water available for our guests from around the world who may not be aware of our commitment to decreasing bottled water usage,” a note sent to students and faculty said.

So students were encouraged to bring their own water if they thought they would be thirsty.

It did end up being a sunny day for the school’s commencement ceremony outside on the quadrangle. But the forecast earlier in the week had called for storms.

Still, the university had 15,000 ponchos on hand for graduates and guests just in case. The school orders that many every year regardless of the weather forecast.

“We have them rain or shine because you never know if there’s going to be a pop-up storm,” McGinn said.

The Grade is the St. Louis region’s premier blog on education and child welfare. To read other recent posts, go to www.stltoday.com/thegrade.