It’s already been an abnormally warm and dry winter for Southeastern Colorado, and there’s little relief in sight: Drought conditions are forecast to continue expanding across the region for the foreseeable future.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a federal agency that tracks precipitation levels and drought conditions across the country, the entirety of Southern Colorado is currently seeing conditions ranging from abnormally dry to extreme drought.
"Pueblo proper has seen at least some precipitation.
In February we were above normal, and in January I believe we were very close to normal, … but the southeast plains and especially the southwestern corner of Colorado have been extremely dry over the last three to six months."
The Drought Monitor report notes that severe drought conditions have expanded across the southeastern part of the state to include all of Kiowa, Bent, Prowers, Mineral, Rio Grande, Alamosa, Costilla and Baca Counties, while also encompassing most of Huerfano, Las Animas, Crowley, Saguache and Otero counties and the southern half of Custer County.
Moderate drought conditions have been seen across the majority of South Central and Southeastern Colorado, including Pueblo County, as well as the western portions of Chaffee County and eastern portions of Fremont, Teller and El Paso counties.
"We’ve been in a La Nina pattern, which is conducive to very dry conditions across the area for the winter," Wankowski said.
The current lack of precipitation is expected to continue for several weeks: Wankowski said the forecast currently shows above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation continuing into June.
In addition to fire danger, the high temperatures and low precipitation levels have contributed to low moisture levels in soils; fortunately for Southeastern Colorado, the area is currently benefitting from a surplus of water storage built up through precipitation gathered in years past, Wankowski said.
"The Arkansas River Basin storage is 140 percent of normal thanks to a very wet couple of springs and last winter being above normal for snowfall.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Rating’s agency Moody’s warned on Monday the water crisis affecting Cape Town would cause the city’s borrowing to rise sharply and the provincial economy to shrink the longer the situation lasted.
Sand blows across a normally submerged area at Theewaterskloof dam near Cape Town, South Africa, January 21, 2018.
REUTERS/Mike Hutchings A severe drought afflicting South Africa’s Western Cape province is expected to cut agricultural output by 20 percent in 2018, decimating the wheat crop and reducing apple, grape and pear exports to Europe, according to national government.
The City is bracing for “Day Zero” in late August when its taps could run dry.
The ratings agency estimates capital expenditure related to water and sanitation infrastructure could be as much as 12.7 billion rand ($1 billion) over the next five years.
“The long-term solutions are likely to require significant capital and operating expenditure,” Daniel Mazibuko, an analyst at Moody’s said.
The drought also threatens to slow South Africa’s economic rebound which has been fueled by a surge in agricultural production.
Cape town generated nearly 10 percent of the country’s total gross domestic product in 2016.
Last Tuesday, Statistics South Africa said the economy grew 3.1 percent in October-December, the highest rate since the second quarter of 2016, after expanding by a revised 2.3 percent in the third quarter.
Agriculture showed a 37.5 percent expansion after growing 41.1 percent in the previous quarter.

“But having been through what we’ve been through, we obviously want people to stay aware and redouble our efforts.” Overall, urban residents reduced the amount of water they use by just .8 percent in January, a far cry from the whopping 20.7 percent reduction in January 2017, compared to January 2013, the baseline year the state uses.
Marcus attributed January’s meager conservation totals to hot, dry weather around the state that month, particularly in Southern California, where temperatures hit the 80s on multiple days, prompting people to turn on lawn sprinklers, which account for half of all urban water use in the state.
While residents of the nine Bay Area counties continued their conservation habits — cutting water use 6.9 percent in January, compared with January 2013, the South Coast area, which includes Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange County and San Diego, did the opposite: Residents there used 3.8 percent more water in January than five years ago.
By comparison, most big Bay Area cities used less.
Despite rain and snow last week and more in the forecast for next week, much of this winter has been dry.
But rainfall totals around the state since Oct. 1 are barely half of average in Northern California this winter and about a quarter of average in Southern California.
That’s in part because of a major water main break in the city in January and because the period it computed its numbers was 35 days long this year, compared with a 30-day period in 2013, said city spokesman Chuck Finnie.
The reason: Last winter’s storms didn’t help Southern California as much as Northern California.
“Generally one dry year doesn’t make a drought,” Marcus said.
“But if we don’t get more snow this winter, the reservoirs are going to drop like a rock when the growing season starts and it’s going to be tight.” Last month, the water board began a process to make permanent the emergency water-wasting regulations that it passed during the drought.

With long-term drought conditions well on their way back into California, an incoming period of wet, stormy weather will be welcome by many.
A recent bout of heavy rain brought as much as one-third to 100 percent of the month’s normal precipitation to several cities, including Santa Barbara, San Diego and Los Angeles.
In addition to the heavy high-elevation snowfall of recent weeks, it may seem like the area is well on its way out of the drought – however, it will take many rounds of similarly wet days to bring the water supply back to necessary levels.
Many may therefore be glad to know that a damp weather pattern is poised to settle over the western United States through at least the upcoming week.
“The series of storms expected to impact California this week will not erase the precipitation deficit, but will help to add water to the reservoirs and snowpack to the mountains,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Mike Doll.
Following record-challenging heat on Sunday and Monday across the Pacific Northwest, the first of a string of storms is in store to approach the West Coast.
The pattern may offer significant help to drought-stricken areas, but may also cause incidents of flash flooding and mudslides in recent burn scar locations, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Ken Clark.
Slick roads and limited visibility in periods of rain will contribute to slowed commutes as well as airline delays throughout the week.
Heavy precipitation is expected to be limited to high-elevation snowfall during the middle of the week, adding feet of snowpack to parts of the Sierras.
"There is the potential for snow levels to dip so much that snow may fall on the passes in Southern California late this week as well,” he said, as the storm track may hone in on that region this coming weekend.

It’s already been an abnormally warm and dry winter for Southeastern Colorado, and there’s little relief in sight: Drought conditions are forecast to continue expanding across the region for the foreseeable future.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a federal agency that tracks precipitation levels and drought conditions across the country, the entirety of Southern Colorado is currently seeing conditions ranging from abnormally dry to extreme drought.
"Pueblo proper has seen at least some precipitation.
In February we were above normal, and in January I believe we were very close to normal, … but the southeast plains and especially the southwestern corner of Colorado have been extremely dry over the last three to six months."
The Drought Monitor report notes that severe drought conditions have expanded across the southeastern part of the state to include all of Kiowa, Bent, Prowers, Mineral, Rio Grande, Alamosa, Costilla and Baca Counties, while also encompassing most of Huerfano, Las Animas, Crowley, Saguache and Otero counties and the southern half of Custer County.
Moderate drought conditions have been seen across the majority of South Central and Southeastern Colorado, including Pueblo County, as well as the western portions of Chaffee County and eastern portions of Fremont, Teller and El Paso counties.
"We’ve been in a La Nina pattern, which is conducive to very dry conditions across the area for the winter," Wankowski said.
The current lack of precipitation is expected to continue for several weeks: Wankowski said the forecast currently shows above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation continuing into June.
In addition to fire danger, the high temperatures and low precipitation levels have contributed to low moisture levels in soils; fortunately for Southeastern Colorado, the area is currently benefitting from a surplus of water storage built up through precipitation gathered in years past, Wankowski said.
"The Arkansas River Basin storage is 140 percent of normal thanks to a very wet couple of springs and last winter being above normal for snowfall.

The western portion of Garfield County is listed in extreme drought, according to U.S. Drought Monitor in the latest report released Thursday, which is the second-worse drought category.
The rest of western Oklahoma, including parts of Alfalfa, Major, Woods, Woodward and part of Grant counties are also listed in as in extreme drought or exceptional drought, the worst category.
The rest of Garfield County, along with Kingfisher County and about half of Grant County, are listed as in severe drought, the third-worst category.
The Mesonet weather-recording station in Breckinridge recorded 1.33 inches of rain so far this year, and 1.44 in the last 90 days as of Thursday.
Of the 1.33 inches this year, 1.13 came in the last 30 days during the few days of rain in the latter half of February.
A portion of Woodward County, along with Woods and Alfalfa counties, are in the exceptional drought zone.
Despite the current drought conditions in the western half of the state, Lt. Gov.
Fallin’s modified burn ban, only two counties are in county-commissioner burn bans – Alfalfa and Major counties, according to Oklahoma Forestry Services.
"Garfield County is split between extreme and severe drought conditions.
That’s usually a dry pattern for us.

Despite the recent storm that pummeled the Sierra with snow and scattered rain in the valleys and along the coast, California remains unseasonably dry with 47 percent of the state experiencing at least "moderate drought" conditions, according to the federal government’s Drought Monitor.
The storm hailed by meteorologists as "the season’s biggest" gave the snowpack a little boost and ski slopes lots of fresh powder with many resorts reporting more than 7 feet of snow in the first week of March.
But seasonal totals remain well below normal and the new drought map released Thursday reveals no change in the unusual dry conditions that have mired the mountain range for several months.
Media: KCRA Null emphasized his point with the latest numbers from the Eight Station Index that measures the amount of precipitation (rainfall and water content in the snow) in the northern Sierra and is used to help determine the status of Northern California’s water supply.
The index stood at 19.92 inches before March 1 and the recent precipitation in the first week of March bumped it up to 24.06.
We only got more than 2 inches above normal.
What’s more, for the index to be at a normal reading for this time of year, the storm would have needed to boost the index up by 16 inches and Null says the amount of snow to reach that level would have been catastrophic.
State Climatologist Mike Anderson with the California Department of Water Resources says the map is mainly used "for rangeland ag support through the USDA and may not capture the nuance of different conditions present in California for different sectors."
The map from the week before the storm is nearly the same from the one after, with 91 percent of the state continuing to be abnormally dry in the latter map.
Most of Northern California, including the San Francisco Bay Area, is abnormally dry.

George Kostyrko, a spokesperson for the State Water Resources Control Board, said agencies like SWRCB and DWR will continue focusing on water conservation, as they did during the drought.
The board met Feb. 20 to hear from the public and consider adopting new regulations for water conservation.
John Leahigh, principal engineer for the State Water Project, said last month that this year’s precipitation levels are dismal.
“We are coming off of what was the wettest year on record, last year,” he said.
“This is the third driest on record since 1977 and 1991,” Leahigh added, in regards to precipitation in the Sacramento area, and most of California.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts below-normal precipitation conditions for much of California.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor for California, as of Feb. 13, about 80 percent of the state is defined as abnormally dry, or drought condition.
“Just three months ago, 25 percent of the state would be characterized as those categories.” Leahigh added.
“That’s a pretty dramatic turnaround.” Looking ahead, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts below-normal precipitation conditions for much of California.
State reservoirs have above average storage to date, Leahigh said.

In areas of existing dryness and drought, precipitation exceeded 1.5 inches only in southeastern Tennessee and adjacent areas, the southeastern tier of the dry area in Arkansas, the Sierra Nevada, and portions of southwestern California.
Southeast Light to moderate precipitation kept dryness and drought unchanged from last week, but some substantial changes were introduced farther west and south.
Moderate drought now covers two swaths, one across southern Alabama and central Georgia, and another from southeastern South Carolina southwestward through the eastern Florida Panhandle.
During the last 90 days, precipitation generally ranged from 3 to 6 inches below normal, with deficits approaching 8 inches in a few areas near the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, including the new D2 area in southeastern Georgia.
Small adjustments were made across southern and central Texas, but continued dryness with periods of strong winds and low humidity led to broad deterioration from the Texas Panhandle and northeastern New Mexico northeastward into the central Plains.
This resulted in broad D3 expansion across western sections of the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, and much of northeastern New Mexico.
Southern parts of the Plains (above central Texas) experienced another week with little or no precipitation, prompting large-scale deterioration across the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, northeastern New Mexico, and central and western Kansas.
Much smaller areas of improvement were observed farther west, and in part of western South Dakota that missed most of the snowstorm, some slight D1 and D2 expansion was introduced.
Conditions were generally unchanged in Montana, though D0 was pulled out of a small area in the interior southeast of the state.
The Navajo Nation declared a drought emergency due to poor rangeland and reduced water stores.

According to the National Integrated Drought Information System, abnormal dryness or drought are affecting 2,764,000 people in Utah.
More than 90 percent of the state is in a moderate drought, with a severe drought designated for much of eastern Utah.
The snow pack in the mountains, as measured at 11 SNOTEL sites in the mountains of the Price/San Rafael River Basin is just 47 percent of the median, compared to 163 percent at this time last year.
Stream flow forecasts for the Price and San Rafael River Basin are currently predicted to range from 25 percent of average on the White River below Tabbyune Creek, to 60 percent on the Green River near the Town of Green River.
Reservoirs still at high levels During the unusually wet winter of 2016-2017 area reservoirs were filled to capacity, and many remain at above-average levels for this time of year.
As of March 1, Huntington North Reservoir was 126 percent of capacity, compared to 88 percent at this time last year.
The average percent of capacity for this time of year is 79 percent.
Scofield Reservoir was measured at 78 percent of capacity, compared to only 25 percent last year.
The average percent of capacity on March 1 is 47 percent.
While Joes Valley Reservoir was only 50 percent full at this time last year, the reservoir is currently at 74 percent of capacity.