{"id":32457,"date":"2023-08-06T11:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-06T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-monsoon-outlook-in-august-looks-bleak\/"},"modified":"2023-08-06T17:45:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-06T17:45:00","slug":"new-mexico-monsoon-outlook-in-august-looks-bleak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-monsoon-outlook-in-august-looks-bleak\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico monsoon outlook in August looks \u2018bleak\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Construction
Construction workers excavate part of University Avenue in front of New Mexico State University. Las Cruces had 34 days of triple-digit temperatures from June 19 through July 22, and little monsoon activity. (Danielle Prokop\/Source NM)<\/span>Danielle Prokop \/ Source NM<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The respite from intense, deadly heat waves won\u2019t last long. And it looks like the monsoon will suffer for it, according to New Mexico forecasters.<\/p>\n

Globally, July has been the hottest month in recorded history, a preliminary analysis from international science organizations found. The data will be fully published in August, but the analysis shows it\u2019s the hottest July on record \u2013 and that these heat waves in the Southwest U.S. and Mexico would have been nearly impossible without the effects of burning fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

A drop in pressure allowed for scattered storms and short bursts of rain across the state. However, August is predicted to be hotter and drier than normal, according to the National Climate Prediction Center outlook released Monday.<\/p>\n

New Mexico State University climatologist Dave DuBois said he\u2019s hearing from climate science colleagues around the world that are also struggling with record-breaking heat in India and China.<\/p>\n

He said the current trends globally and in New Mexico are worrying, not just for crops, but for wild plants and animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if we do get a really wet September, it\u2019s unclear how much that is going to help, when most of the season has already passed for greening up forage for natural species,\u201d DuBois said.<\/p>\n

The loss of key moisture means much of the state is sliding back into drought. Dry plants and hotter, drier temperatures raise the risks of wildfires outside of their typical season.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually we have the monsoon bringing in higher relative humidities,\u201d he said. \u201cIt takes a lot more energy to make a fire when the humidity is higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

July was defined by a \u201cnon-soon\u201d period, where the storms that build up in the late afternoons and evenings have been missing in action for much of the state.<\/p>\n

While the dome of high pressure abated over the weekend, allowing storms to temporarily build up over mountains across the state, that pattern is predicted to end Thursday, as hot winds blowing back bring less chance for rain, forecasters with National Weather Service offices in Albuquerque and Santa Teresa said.<\/p>\n

Instead of a monsoon season with any \u201cstrength or duration,\u201d meteorologists said it looks like there may be long periods of hot dry weather, broken up with short periods of storms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bleak because we\u2019re not seeing the pattern setup that brings the moisture in and keeps it here,\u201d said Tom Bird, a National Weather Service forecaster out of the Santa Teresa office.<\/p>\n

July and August rains often account for about half the state\u2019s yearly rainfall for the southern portions of the state, and provide about a third of the rainfall totals for the rest of New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Some long-range predictions show that September\u2019s rain patterns could be closer to normal, but it isn\u2019t easy to catch up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t get it now, during this period of time, it\u2019s hard to catch up for the year,\u201d Bird said. \u201cWe\u2019re already well below normal on precipitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Las Cruces has received just under an inch of rainfall since Jan. 1, instead of the more than 4 inches of rain it normally receives.<\/p>\n

While rivers saw strong runoff from a wet winter, the lack of monsoon may soon hit them hard, said Andrew Mangham, a hydrologist in the National Weather Service Albuquerque office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that almost every river and every reservoir in the state is going to see some level of drying because we\u2019re not getting consistent moisture almost anywhere,\u201d Mangham said.<\/p>\n

The only exception has been the Pecos River, he said. That\u2019s in part because of the snowpack, but also the water flooding into the riverbed due to the burn scars of the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon wildfires.<\/p>\n

Despite a good snowpack and high runoff, the Rio Grande is already slipping into sand bed. The San Acacia reach \u2013 which runs between Socorro and Elephant Butte Reservoir \u2013 dried more than 26 miles over eight days last week, said Carolyn Donnelly, who supervises water operations in Albuquerque for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Rio Grande stretches out just upstream of the San Acacia reach, on July 30. The reach has dried nearly every year for the past 25 years, but without stronger monsoons, the river could dry up into Albuquerque, for the second time in 40 years. (Danielle Prokop\/Source NM)<\/span>Danielle Prokop \/ Source NM<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Rio Grande has been running high in other places, such as Espa\u00f1ola, where it meets the Chama River, or below Elephant Butte Dam, since its release in early June. However, New Mexico\u2019s largest river could dry again through the state\u2019s largest city, for the second time in about 40 years, if the monsoons continue to be weak.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could see drying in Albuquerque as early as mid-August,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Donnelly said the drying is partially because of the fact that El Vado reservoir remains under construction for repairs, noting that water would usually be captured and stored there, to release throughout the summer.<\/p>\n

Other rivers that ran strong during the record runoff are also dwindling. The Santa Fe River, an ephemeral stream that provides some of the city\u2019s water and feeds two acequias, has dwindled recently, said Alan Hook, who coordinates water resources with the city of Santa Fe.<\/p>\n

Without the rains to help keep the channel wet, or offer boosts to the amount of water flowing out of the mountains, it means the city has to limit how much water it provides to acequias.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe conserve water and deliver water every other week, and wait out until the monsoons can get the river channel wetted again,\u201d Hook said.<\/p>\n

DuBois, the state climatologist, said the drought outlook is challenging on many levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh boy, no, things are not looking good this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Source NM<\/a> is an independent, nonprofit news organization that shines a light on governments, policies and public officials.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ramp up, expect a drying Rio Grande through Albuquerque<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,138,414,88,1163],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-new-mexico","tag-weather","tag-weather-news","tag-weather-science"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32457","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=32457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32457"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}