State still thirsty after taste of rain, expert says

Since Oct. 1, the beginning of the water year for New Mexico, only 11 days of measurable rain have been recorded at Santa Fe Regional Airport, including two storms this week, the National Weather Service says.

“That’s a lot of days without precipitation,” senior hydrologist Royce Fontenot said Wednesday.

In the previous 72 hours, most weather stations in the Santa Fe metro area received from one-quarter to onehalf inch of rain, he said.

Fontenot characterized the rain of the past few days as “a dust-buster and not a drought-buster.”

Long dry stretches followed by a little rain are “like giving a big, high-calorie value meal from your favorite fast food outlet to someone who hasn’t eaten for a while,” Fontenot said. “In the short term, it’s some welcome relief.”

A key thing to understand about the drought, he said, is that it is long term. “The environment has been malnourished for a long time.”

Meteorologists and hydrologists hope for a pattern shift with the monsoon. “The current outlook hints for at least a normal monsoon season,” Fontenot said. “We will have a better idea in early June.”

The latest report from the multiagency National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb., comes out Thursday, but a report for the sevenday period that ended May 15 states that severe, extreme and exceptional drought increased from Southern California into much of New Mexico.

“Satellite-derived vegetation health data indicated conditions have deteriorated rapidly across the region, with the worst vegetation indices with respect to normal noted from Arizona southeastward into southern New Mexico,” the report said.

The forecast for Northern New Mexico calls for sunny weather with rising temperatures into next week.