Fail helpfully when the wrong inputs are given.
mydatedf <- data.frame("2015-10-20", stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
calcWaterYear(mydatedf)
Error in as.POSIXlt.default(dateVec) :
do not know how to convert 'dateVec' to class “POSIXlt”
Called from: as.POSIXlt.default(dateVec)