Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Early forecast good for runoff

John Fleck The Albuquerque Journal

The snow started falling in the mountains of northern New Mexico in early December, and it hasn't really let up since.

"We've fared fairly well through this last series of storms," said Richard Armijo, a snow surveyor with the U.S. government's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The result is an early season forecast of above-average runoff on most of New Mexico's rivers. Only the Pecos River, which rises on the east flank of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, is forecast to have below-average runoff, and not by much.

The January forecast offers water users their first preliminary look at what they might expect for the coming water season. Snow that falls in the mountains from late fall through midspring melts off as the weather warms, providing stream flow for cities and farms in the low country of New Mexico.

Chamita, a snow measurement station above Chama near the Colorado border, has 40 inches of snow, more than double the early January average, according to Armijo. The Hopewell station, northwest of Taos, has 60 inches of snow, 70 percent above average.

If the pattern continues, that should translate into good flows in the state's rivers, according to a forecast issued this week by Armijo's agency.

Flows on the Rio Grande from the mountains of Colorado are forecast to be 30 percent above average, according to a Natural Resources Conservation Service report released late Monday. Similar surplus flows are forecast where the Rio Grande enters Elephant Butte reservoir.

Flows on the San Juan River into Navajo Reservoir near Farmington are forecast at 31 percent above average.

The Pecos is the only one of the state's rivers that shows a forecast deficit — 6 percent below average where it flows into Santa Rosa Lake in eastern New Mexico.

The waves of snow have thus far kept the ravages of La Niña at bay, Armijo said. La Niña, a global weather pattern linked to cool water in the Pacific Ocean, tends to keep the Southwest dry, but not this year.

"It's been trumped this go-round," Armijo said.

For water managers, the healthy snowpack is a good sign. But David Gensler at the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, noted that it is still early. Much depends, he said, on weather over the next four months.

The conservancy district depends on flows from melting mountain snow to provide water to farmers along the Rio Grande, from Cochiti to south of Socorro.

"It certainly looks good right now," Gensler said. "But there's a lot of time between now and April."

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