Certainly, these recent storms have been very fruitful, but it’s not going to get us out of drought … particularly over the northern mountains.” The Drought Monitor Work Group, made up of members of the National Weather Service and state and federal agencies, determines the extent and severity of drought in the state.
Areas under exceptional drought include the northern part of the state and the Four Corners, where precipitation during the past six months was 50 to 75 percent of normal across much of the region.
Last year at this time, no part of the state was considered to be in severe, extreme or exceptional drought and only 5 percent was considered abnormally dry.
There are usually distinct periods of heavy rain during the monsoon and periods with little or no rain.
However, the city is still in a rainfall deficit for the year, at 4.45 inches.
The rain has helped place Bernalillo County and the middle Rio Grande Valley into the severe drought category, an improvement from the extreme drought category it was in last week.
Southern New Mexico had the greatest improvements, as drought was reduced by one category in many areas compared with last week.
Also during the Working Group conference, Raymond Abeyta of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water resources in the western part of the country, said recent rains helped some with reservoir storage in the Rio Grande Valley.
We’ll have to see whether the rains really develop and really help us out.” El Vado contained about 9,682 acre-feet in July, according to Abeyta, who also said he believed that level was among the lowest he had seen since the early 2000s.
Last year at this time, the lake contained about 140,000 acre-feet of water.

0 Travis County has slipped into moderate drought after weeks of little to no rain in the Austin and surrounding area, according to a map released Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Parts of the Hill Country are now in extreme drought, including portions of Mason, Llano and Gillespie counties, the map shows.
“In a lot of areas, no matter what happens the rest of the year, it’s not going to be a good crop,” Nielsen-Gammon said.
Gary Elliott, who owns the Driftwood Estate Winery in Driftwood, said the creek he relies on to irrigate his vineyard went dry this year — only the second time that has happened in 20 years.
On Thursday, he was trying to lower a pipe to draw water to the grapes so he doesn’t lose his whole crop.
“There is a lot of heat stress on vines right now.” READ MORE: With 17 triple-digit days, July was Austin’s seventh-warmest on record Earlier this week, scattered showers dropped about 1½ inches rain in Mason and Marble Falls, Lower Colorado River Authority rain gauges show, but it did little to improve the dry conditions.
“Historically, precipitation is that low only five times per century.” As the ground dries up, it heats more rapidly, water evaporates faster and the drought worsens, creating a sort of domino effect, said Troy Kimmel, a University of Texas meteorology professor.
“We’ve got to have something that is going to give us some rain in Central Texas,” Kimmel said.
A fire near Inks Lake State Park that started Sunday was nearly 100 percent contained Thursday.
Burn bans remain in place in most of Central Texas, including in Travis, Williamson, Hays, Burnet and Bastrop counties, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.

GUNNEDAH – From ground level, Australia’s drought looks like a featureless, brown dustbowl, but from the air it transforms into an artistry of colour and texture as the land cracks under a blazing sun.
Circular dry plough tracks resemble the concentric circles in Aboriginal dot paintings that tell of an ancient mythology, starving cattle queuing for feed look like an abstract painting and their black shadows stretching across the land a surrealist image.
But for farmer Ash Whitney, there is no such beauty, just blood, sweat and tears as he struggles to feed his cattle, cutting the drying branches of Kurrajong trees – a last resort during the worst of droughts.
"I have been here all my life, and this drought is feeling like it will be around a while," says a despairing Whitney, whose property near the town of Gunnedah is on the Liverpool Plains, a usually fertile area now withered having received the lowest average rainfall in nearly 30 years.
(For related pictures, please click here https://reut.rs/2Aua53O) The worst drought in living memory is sweeping parts of eastern Australia, leaving farmers struggling to cope and many of them asking questions about the future.
Cattle farmer Tom Wollaston, born 70 years ago in the same house he lives in today, is afraid for what this drought will mean for his children, who aim to take over the 2,300-hectare (5,683 acre) property when Tom "hangs up his boots".
"I can’t seem to be able to do anything else apart from just feed, and keep things going, and it (the drought) seems to be one step ahead of me all the time.
We’ll battle it out, but it puts a strain on everyone," says Wollaston.
His wife Margo says droughts have a very negative impact not only on her family, but the whole farming community around the nearby town of Tamworth in northwest New South Wales (NSW) state.
"I find droughts a little bit like cancer – it sort of eats away at you, and it just gets drier and drier and more severe and more severe, and impacting on your life a lot worse.

More than half of Oregon is now experiencing severe drought, according to a report by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The current drought is the worst the state has seen since 2015, but has already brought considerably more wildfires.
Oregon wildfires have burned 291,000 acres as of July 31, more than double last year’s record-setting fire season at the same time, according to data from Northwest Interagency Coordination Center.
“But this is extreme.
We had periods of hot weather that lasted nine to 10 days, and that’s not normal.” Both Salem and Portland set records for the most days above 90 degrees.
Portland saw its second-hottest average temperature on record at 69.2.
All of this follows on the heels of near-record heat and dryness in May and June as well, which is why Oregon has dropped so deep into drought.
Ninety-five percent of Oregon is considered “abnormally dry” while 82 percent is in moderate drought and 55 percent is in severe drought, the Drought Monitor report said.
And there’s little relief in sight.
He is the author of the book “Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon” and “Hiking Southern Oregon.” He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801.

Photo:(Reuters: David Gray) From ground level, Australia’s drought looks like a featureless, brown dustbowl, but from the air it transforms into an artistry of colour and texture as the land cracks open under a blazing sun.
Circular, dry plough tracks resemble the concentric circles in Aboriginal dot paintings which tell of an ancient mythology, starving cattle queuing for feed look like an abstract painting with their black shadows stretching across the land.
But for Ashley Whitney there is no such beauty, just blood, sweat and tears as he struggles to feed his cattle, cutting the drying branches of Kurrajong trees — a last resort during the worst droughts.
Photo:(Reuters: David Gray) A despairing Mr Whitney said the drought felt like it could be around for a while.
His property — near the town of Gunnedah on the usually fertile Liverpool Plains — is now withered, having received the lowest average rainfall in more than 25 years.
Cattle farmers Margo and Tom Wollaston are afraid of what this drought will mean for their children, who aim to take over the running of the 2,300-hectare property when they "hang up their boots".
"I find droughts a little bit like cancer — it sort of eats away at you," she said.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said parts of Australia experienced the second-warmest summer on record in the past year and had also just been through one of the driest and warmest autumns on record.
Still, for the farmers struggling to water their animals, the dry spell — which has left more than 80 per cent of NSW in drought, according to the Department of Primary Industries — looks to be a prolonged and dusty road.
Reuters

Drought and pests have wreaked havoc on crops in the Bolivian province of Santa Cruz, producer of as much as 70 percent of the country’s food.
Of Santa Cruz’s two food-producing regions in the north and east, the latter has been hit by the worst drought in recent years.
Agricultural engineer Genaro Cañani said that the town of Cuatro Cañadas has recorded 91-millimeter (3.6-inch) rain during this year’s planting season – which started May 14 – whereas "normal conditions" mean some 350 mm (13.8 in).
Several small farmers have seen a drastic decrease in rainfall, their crops becoming a bleak landscape of long rows of dried sunflowers, withered, worm-ridden corn and stunted wheat.
The agricultural cycle in east Bolivia normally consists of a dry season – which starts in December – and a rainy season, beginning in the first days of May.
Soy – which is the only genetically modified (GM) crop accepted in Bolivia – is the most harvested during dry seasons, while sorghum, corn, wheat and sunflower thrive during the rainy period.
"Right now, the only GM crop in this area is soy, but we (also) need wheat, corn and sorghum," farmer Eliseo Condori told EFE.
"The drought is punishing us," Nicolas Vasquez, a farmer who moved to Cuatro Cañadas from the western province of Potosi 33 years ago, told EFE, adding that "where there is corn, there are pests."
To make matter worse, earworm infestations are common during dry seasons, which stunts corn stalks, impeding their growth.
"It lays its eggs and they hatch inside."

War, corruption, and poverty have plagued Afghanistan for generations.
These have generally led to a myriad of exacerbating issues like a lack of healthcare infrastructure, education, and political unification.
Agriculture is Afghanistan’s economic foundation — according to the CIA World Factbook, it composes approximately 23% of the country’s GDP.
To contrast, agriculture makes up 0.9% of the United States’s GDP.
20 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces have felt the brunt of this drought, and millions of Afghan people have been devastated by its effects.
According to the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Emergency Response Mechanism, Particularly hard hit are the provinces of Ghor and Badghis, who have generated displacement of over 9,000 households into Herat City, and approx.
The vast majority of these households remain unassisted, lacking access to safe drinking water, shelter or adequate sanitation facilities and food, and as a result, sinking into increased vulnerability; sinking into increasing levels of vulnerability and employing negative coping mechanisms such as skipping meals and using money lenders to feed their families.” Some countries are pitching in to help — the U.K. recently donated $13.1 million to The World Food Programme, who aims to provide aid in the areas worst affected by the drought.
They plan to reach and contribute to 1.4 million people, not only providing them with basic supplies but enabling them to have a more successful harvest next year.
A short-term fix may be welcome, but a more effective, long-term solution includes a level of sustainment that will last longer than just a few months.
This is particularly important not only for the families themselves, but to mitigate all the issues involved in mass-migration into major population centers.

For weeks, farmers in Germany have been waiting for rain and are now calling for a billion euros in government aid.
But German Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner says she has to wait for data before doing out any money.
But they cannot expect any immediate help from their federal government.
Speaking one day after the DBV requested €1 billion ($1.17 billion) to compensate farmers whose crops have been most severely affected, Agricultural Minister Julia Klöckner acknowledged that some farmers had good reason to fear for their livelihoods and "the corn is literally drying out on its stalks."
But that’s unlikely to come as much consolation to either farmers or climate activists, who say the drought is evidence of the devastating effects of global warming.
‘A glass of water against a wildfire’ On Tuesday officials from Klöckner’s ministry met with representatives from the states for a kind of "drought summit."
But Klöckner says that not all extreme weather phenomena can be blamed on climate change and that farmers have enough on their hands at present.
Breaking point With minimal levels of rain having fallen since April, the normally fertile regions of the north and northeast have seen their grain and crop harvests severely affected, with massive losses now guaranteed as a result of the drought.
Read more: Climate change already affecting German farmers "We expect billions in losses," Rukwied said last week.
The grain crop alone has fallen by eight million tonnes, which equates to 18 percent of the annual yield.

There’s going to be an important ‘drought summit’ today where farmers will plead with the Government for help to deal with conditions created by the heatwave.
They’re concerned about the ‘unprecedented’ impact on food production the hot and dry weather has created.
The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) will meet Environment Secretary Michael Gove in London to discuss how to deal with conditions that have reduced grass growth and depleted some yields.
MORE: Man plucked gran’s eyeballs ‘because of demons behind them’ then killed her NFU president Minette Batters is in no doubt how big the potential crisis is and plans to make this known to Mr Gove.
She told the BBC: ‘It’s unprecedented.
I’ve been farming for 25 years myself and we’ve never been feeding cattle at this time of the year, and we are at the moment, and that is the case right across the country.’ ‘We haven’t had any appreciable rainfall since May, but if you have your office outside you are obviously at the mercy of the weather.
‘This is unusual – we haven’t seen anything like this since 1976.
‘It’s added a lot of costs because it comes on the back of a long, hard winter.
I think that’s what has made this year so very unusual.’ MORE: Train worker hugs suicidal man and asks ‘are you having a bad day?’ as he saves his life The meeting will be packed with members from rural agencies and farming charities who will also have their say in front of officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
It has been the driest first half of summer since 1961, with Thursday and Friday experiencing the first rainfall in weeks.

Grass growth back on track in the west after 50mm of rain in past week Heavy rainfall in many parts of the country in recent days will have been greatly welcomed by farmers, but a significant amount is still needed to restore land to workable conditions after one of the longest droughts in Irish history.
An absolute drought is a period of 15 or more consecutive days without 0.2mm or more of rain.
"And a heavy downpour could lead to a lot of direct run-off, especially on compacted soil types with ground conditions being extremely firm in many parts of the country.
"There’s definitely a change in the weather pattern and we are starting to make progress," said Galway dairy farmer and Farming Independent columnist Henry Walsh.
"I walked the land over the weekend and the green has re-established itself in the grass.
"We put fertiliser down two weeks ago in anticipation of the rain, which came, so now we are aiming for a second cut at the end of August which will be about two weeks behind.
"If we can put down fertiliser after that we can aim for a third cut, or use it for grazing.
Everyone needs to put a plan in place now for the winter."
For 70-year-old New Ross dairy farmer Billy Moroney, the recent rains have brought some hope.
"Last week it was not looking great but hopefully now I will be able to get a good supply for the winter," he said.