The NOAA Automated Atmospheric River Detection system has picked up a storm with some potential in the Pacific, which at this point (five days out) seems to be pointed at California: That’s the forecast image for Monday morning. According to Michael Dettinger, who was fielding my questions this afternoon on Twitter, AR storms are very …
Continue reading ‘A California “atmospheric river” storm, in June?’ »
With 0.02 inch (0.5 mm) of rain yesterday afternoon, we’ve finally hit 1 inch (25 mm) at our house for the 2012-13 (Oct.-Sept.) water year. Then it rained again this afternoon, making this the first time we’ve had consecutive days with measurable precipitation since Dec. 15-16. Through the end of May, we’re at 21 percent …
Penn Cove, Whidbey Island, May 2103
Concerned the current drought will end? No worries, climate change has your back: Climate change is likely to render a key part of the water supply for Santa Fe and Albuquerque increasingly unreliable in coming decades, according to a new analysis by federal scientists. The San Juan-Chama project, which imports water from the mountains of …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: San Juan-Chama supply at risk from climate change’ »
Ever since I first heard about “atmospheric rivers” from Cliff Dahm, the biologist who until recently headed science efforts for the Delta Stewardship Council, I’ve been asking every scientist who I heard talk about them whether they can make it all the way to New Mexico. AR’s are these amazing storms that blast California like a …
It is a strange reality of our modern world that, in the face of a truly remarkable drought here in the Middle Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico, I was able to pour imported Colorado River water on purely ornamental plants in my garden yesterday morning. I’m thrifty with the water – a modest drip …
In 1889, John Wesley Powell tagged along as a group of US Senators toured the western United States in an effort to understand “the irrigation problem”. What Powell reported looks kinda familiar: “The winds are drifting sands here and there,” John Wesley Powell said of his 1889 visit to the Lower Rio Grande Valley, where …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Powell warned us’ »
From the morning paper, a look at the effect of drought on farmers in southern New Mexico. It’s a more complex story than simply lack of water, and the impact depends a great deal on where you are: The Franzoys’ problem is not so much the dropping aquifer as the quality of the groundwater. It …
Continue reading ‘stuff I wrote elsewhere: drought hits New Mexico’s famed Hatch Valley’ »
Given my profession, I’m incentivized to freak out about drought. If I thought it wasn’t a big deal, I’d have to find something else to write about. But in darker moments, I wonder if I’m overdoing the freakout. Chris Austin’s writeup of Ellen Hanak’s comments at this week’s California water bond hearing raise the question …
Andrew Freedman had an interesting piece last month about tree ring research that’s different than the stuff I usually write about: The past several decades have been the wettest in nearly five centuries for the watershed serving the nation’s largest city, New York, according to a new study. But that wet period is deceiving because …
Continue reading ‘A New York story: not all the tree rings’ tales are about drought’ »