Drought — Lower Chama River Valley, New Mexico

2013-04-01 to 2013-04-30 · Lower Chama River Valley, New Mexico

Wider weather episode

Drought severity drastically increased across portions of central and western New Mexico throughout the month of April.

Only a few storms brought precipitation to the state during the month, and those storms were focused on northern areas of the state. Percent of normal precipitation was well below normal for northern and central New Mexico. Most locations in eastern and central New Mexico were under 25% of normal. Along the Rio Grande Valley percent of normal inched up to 25-50% of normal. Areas in the west, northwest and north central ranged from 50-90% of normal with some isolated pockets of values at or over 100% mostly in the higher terrain areas along the peaks of mountain ranges.

To start the month off Extreme drought (D3) covered nearly 50% of the state covering most of the eastern plains extending as far west as the west central mountains with some Exceptional drought (D4) speckled across this area. Severe drought (D2) covered the remainder of the area with some Moderate drought (D1) holding on in the San Francisco River Valley and in portions of the far northwest highlands. One week into the month D3 conditions had crept all the way to the western border between AZ and NM in the west central plateau. Into the latter half of the month D3 conditions had increased to cover 77% of the area with all areas in the northwest returning to D2. By the end of the month with most of the state in D3, D4 conditions increased along central NM in the Rio Grande Valley extending from Bernalillo past Socorro southward. D4 increased from 4% at the beginning of the month to 24% by months end. The far northwest highland zone which was making an attempt at getting out of drought was sucked back into D2 conditions. The San Francisco River Valley zone which was had thus far managed to stay out of drought conditions was no longer successfully and now every zone in the ABQ CWA is experiencing D2 or higher drought conditions.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 438270. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.