{"id":22390,"date":"2025-05-05T20:12:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T02:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-big-dry-continues-cortezs-april-precipitation-data-are-in\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:13:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:13:38","slug":"the-big-dry-continues-cortezs-april-precipitation-data-are-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-big-dry-continues-cortezs-april-precipitation-data-are-in\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Big Dry continues\u2019: Cortez\u2019s April precipitation data are in"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hawkins
Hawkins Preserve on a sunny day. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Insufficient April showers brought just 0.48 inches of precipitation to Cortez.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s 67% of the typical 0.72 inches the city normally gets in April, and brings year-to-date total precipitation to 2.23 inches, which represents 62% of the 3.6 inches we should have by now.<\/p>\n

Put simply, \u201cThe Big Dry continues,\u201d said Jim Andrus, a weather watcher in Cortez for the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we got two April snowstorms at the beginning and the middle of the month, they were weak and offered little relief from our worsening drought rating,\u201d said Andrus.<\/p>\n

The storm on May 4 offered little relief too \u2013 he measured just 0.18 inch of rain that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sure need a lot more than that,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s wet, but not wet enough: A Small Damp inside the Big Dry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rain is expected on May 5 to 7 as well, until the low-pressure system drifts east and causes temperatures to rise once more, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be hoping and counting raindrops,\u201d said Andrus of the early May storms.<\/p>\n

As of May 1, the Dolores Basin snowpack water equivalence is at 26% of normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWestern Colorado and New Mexico to the south are slipping into deeper drought. \u2026 Water supply for irrigation may be measured carefully as a result,\u201d said Andrus.<\/p>\n

Temperature-wise, two daily highs were set last month:<\/p>\n

On April 11, 79 degrees broke the 2023 record of 76 degreesOn April 12, 82 degrees broke the 2023 record of 80 degrees<\/div>\n

The highest temperature in April was that 82 degrees on April 12, and the coldest was 17 degrees on April 2.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, the 30- and 90-day forecasts \u201coffer a little hope, forecasting equal chances of normal precipitation,\u201d said Andrus.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that doesn\u2019t say much with the driest month of June approaching,\u201d he said. \u201cWater your lawns and gardens carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

early May are just a \u2018Small Damp in the Big Dry,\u2019 weather watcher says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,402,28,29,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-drought","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77689,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22390\/revisions\/77689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22390"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}