A hydrant apparatus may be employed to monitor a water distribution system, and may include a sensor, a processor, and a local clock source. The apparatus may wake from a low power mode to a sensing mode, receive the sensor data, associate the sensor data with a first local clock time, and return the apparatus to the low power mode from the sensing mode. The apparatus may subsequently wake to an operational mode, determine a second local clock time subsequent to the first local clock time, associate an external clock time with the second local clock time, determine an offset for the received sensor data based on the first local clock time and the association between the second local clock time and the external clock time, and transmit the sensor data and the offset to an external monitoring system.