WATER SUPPLY FORECAST – March 2009

Contact: NWS - Ed Polasko (505) 244-9147
NRCS - Wayne Sleep (505) 761-4431
NRCS – Richard Armijo (505) 761-4428

Coordinated Release: National Weather Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service

The water supply forecast for early March 2009 ranges from near normal to well below normal snow melt runoff through June. Lack of snowfall in the mountains so far in 2009 and warm dry spring-like weather from mid February into early March have combined to lower expectations for the spring snowmelt runoff period.

Forecast flows for the Rio Grande include 100 percent of normal into Cochiti Lake and 103 percent of normal into Elephant Butte Lake. Other Rio Grande Basin reservoir forecast inflows range from 108 percent of normal at El Vado Lake to 62 percent of normal at Jemez Canyon Reservoir. Inflow to Santa Rosa Lake is expected to be 75 percent of normal while in the San Juan Basin, Navajo Reservoir is expecting 104 percent of normal inflow.

Inflow to Conchas Lake is forecast to be only 58 percent of normal, while spring flows in the Gila River Basin and the Rio Ruidoso should also be well below normal.

Precipitation across New Mexico during February 2009 was near normal in the Four Corners region of San Juan County and near to above normal in a small portion of the eastern plains from about Melrose through Tucumcari into Union County. Elsewhere, February precipitation was well below normal for the second consecutive month. Albuquerque set a record for the driest start to any year on record (since 1892) with no measurable precipitation during the first two months of 2009.

Seasonal precipitation, October 2008 through February 2009, ranged from far below average over most of eastern and southern New Mexico to slightly above average in the northern mountains.  Seasonal precipitation through February in the south central and southwest mountains of Colorado was about average.

Surveys by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service indicate that snowpack water content in the Rio Grande basin as of March 1 was 108 percent of normal, but only 72 percent of one year ago. In the San Juan Basin the snowpack water content is 104 percent of normal, but only 66 percent of the total of March 1, 2008.

Looking at historical March 1 snowpack water content in the New Mexico portion of the Rio Grande Basin going back to 1995, the current snowpack ranks as the fifth best of the past 15 years despite recent dry conditions. However, just two months ago, the snowpack water content was the best of the past 15 years at 169 percent of normal (on January 1).

In the Colorado high country headwaters of the Rio Grande Basin, snowpack water content as of March 1, 2009 was 108 percent of normal but only 67 percent of one year ago.

La Niña cold water conditions in the equatorial central Pacific Ocean may have been a factor in shifting the storm track well to the north and east of New Mexico during the first two months of 2009. Forecasts for a weakening La Niña this spring would still favor drier than normal conditions for New Mexico, especially across the east and south.

New Mexico reservoir storage is well below normal in the Rio Grande Basin, Canadian Basin, and Pecos Basin, but near normal at Navajo Lake. In the Rio Grande basin, storage is 69 percent of the 1971 to 2000 normal and 124 percent of last years storage at this time. In the San Juan basin, Navajo Reservoir storage is 103 percent of the 30 year normal, and 91 percent of the storage of one year ago.

WATER SUPPLY FORECAST as of March 1, 2009

National Weather Service Office
Albuquerque, New Mexico

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