Western South Dakota is one of those classic drought cases. It was extraordinarily wet there during the 1990s, well above the long term mean. Of the 10 wettest years in a century of records in northwest South Dakota, four came during the 1990s. An astonishing six years during the 1990s were greater than one standard …
Re my post earlier today about my snowy, muddy backyard, it’s worth pointing out that Albuquerque’s only received a total of 0.05 inch of precip since Jan. 1 at the airport, (0.25 at my house), well below normal for the month. It’s a late December storm that left things so muddy.
One of the difficulties in thinking about drought conditions is the tendency to look out your window. Out mine, there’s a nice little blanket of snow, and I’ve got to kick snow or mud off my feet when I come in out of the backyard. But the West is a big and exquisitely interconnected place, …
Marty Hoerling’s discussion of western U.S. drought in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report model runs (which I wrote about last fall) is out: Our study reveals that a sustained change in moisture conditions is unfolding within the broad range of natural variations. The Southwest is likely past the peak water experienced in the 20th century …
U.S. Precipitation, Last 90 Days Precipitation Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. This is not the U.S. precipitation pattern you expect in an El Niño winter. Here in Albuquerque, we’re living under a bit of an illusion, with the fourth storm since Christmas currently snowing east and north of us and clouds and a threat of rain …
Mike Campana, one of my favorite water academics, launches WaterWired with a reprise of the case against bottled water.
San Juan-Chama Project pipe, Albuquerque, Jan. 7 2007 Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. When I was in Phoenix a couple of years ago, I made a pilgrimage to the Frank Lloyd Wrightish Biltmore. Phoenix is flat-out desert, hot, just 7.5 inches of rain (19 cm) a year. But the Biltmore is an oasis, green, cool and …
In the U.S. western water community, John Wesley Powell is a legend for his insight about the difficulties of building a society in an arid land. But we can be a bit parochial here in the states, so until today I’d never heard of his (sort of) Canadian counterpart, John Palliser. Palliser explored the northern …
It looks yesterday’s premise is holding – despite the extraordinary blanket of white in my backyard, the snowpack in the Rio Grande Basin, source of a big chunk of New Mexico’s water supply, didn’t pick up a whole lot from the Great Storm of ’06. Tom Pagano, who does the runoff forecasts for us out …
Storm ’06 – cactus Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. This is the sort of thing tailor-made for Us Media, and we “people of the year” are in full flower today in Albuquerque.