Drought in Lower Chama River Valley, New Mexico

Exceptional drought conditions from July continued through August 2018.

Widespread severe to extreme drought conditions at the end of July 2018 improved only slightly through August 2018 despite greater coverage of showers and thunderstorms with locally heavy rainfall. Severe drought conditions improved slightly to around 64 percent of the state, of which around 36 percent was deemed extreme drought or worse. Exceptional drought improved very little to around 15 percent of New Mexico. Scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms occurred throughout the month, especially around the higher terrain of central New Mexico, the Rio Grande Valley, and eastern New Mexico. Widespread rainfall amounts of one to three inches occurred across central and eastern New Mexico with pockets of between four and six inches around the Gila region and the eastern plains. Thunderstorms across eastern New Mexico were strong to severe on several days during the month. The Four Corners region remained on the dry side during August 2018 with no improvement to exceptional drought conditions. Several small wildfires that started due to lightning strikes along the Continental Divide in July continued to burn slowly through mid to late August.