WATER SUPPLY FORECAST – April 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 April 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 through most of March combined to lower expectations for the spring snowmelt runoff period.

Forecast flows for the Rio Grande include 86 percent of normal into Cochiti Lake and 84 percent of normal into Elephant Butte Lake. Other Rio Grande Basin reservoir forecast inflows range from 101 percent of normal at El Vado Lake to 24 percent of normal at Jemez Canyon Reservoir. Inflow to Santa Rosa Lake is expected to be 57 percent of normal while in the San Juan Basin, Navajo Reservoir is expecting 88 percent of normal inflow.

Inflow to Conchas Lake is forecast to be only 21 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 March 2009 was well below normal across much of the central and west while several eastern border counties received near normal rainfall.

The first measurable precipitation of 2009 fell during March in parts of the mid Rio Grande Valley and in the far southeast plains.

Seasonal precipitation, October 2008 through March 2009, ranged from far below average over most of eastern and southern New Mexico to near average in the northern mountains.  Seasonal precipitation through March 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 April 1 was 82 percent of normal, and 70 percent of one year ago. In the San Juan Basin the snowpack water content is 88 percent of normal, but only 68 percent of the total of April 1, 2008.

Looking at historical April 1 snowpack water content in the New Mexico portion of the Rio Grande Basin going back to 1995, the current snowpack ranks as only the ninth best of the past 15 years. As of January 1, 2009, the snowpack water content was the best of the past 15 years at 169 percent of normal. Three months of drier-than-normal and warmer-than- normal weather conditions have taken a significant toll on the dwindling snowpack.

In the Colorado high country headwaters of the Rio Grande Basin, snowpack water content as of April 1, 2009 was 97 percent of normal but only 69 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 three 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 121 percent of last years storage at this time. In the San Juan basin, Navajo Reservoir storage is 104 percent of the 30 year normal, and 97 percent of the storage of one year ago.

WATER SUPPLY FORECAST as of April 1, 2009

National Weather Service Office
Albuquerque, New Mexico

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