Climatologists and other experts on Wednesday provided an update on the situation in the Four Corners region – where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet.
They say the area is among the hardest hit and there’s little relief expected, and even robust summer rains might not be enough to replenish the soil and ease the fire danger.
The region is dealing with exceptional drought – the worst category.
That has left farmers, ranchers and water planners bracing for a much different situation than just a year ago when only a fraction of the region was experiencing low levels of dryness.
“We’ve been on this pattern where conditions have dried out, we haven’t seen much relief through last summer or into the winter months and here we are going into the summer of 2018 with over two-thirds of the region already in drought,” he said.
The drought has hit the Colorado River hard.
In New Mexico, stretches of the Rio Grande – another one of North America’s longest rivers – have already gone dry as biologists have been forced to scoop up as many endangered Rio Grande silvery minnows as possible so they can be moved upstream.
The river this summer is expected to dry as far north as Albuquerque, New Mexico’s most populous city.
“While this case initially should have been resolved without filing a costly lawsuit, I am excited New Mexico will finally get to tell its unified story about how Texas and the United States have unfairly tried to scapegoat New Mexico,” Balderas said Wednesday.
Texas officials are reviewing New Mexico’s claims.

TUCSON – The new drought stats are in & they don’t look good for the Grand Canyon State.
As of May 24th, 97% of Arizona is in severe drought.
Extreme drought now covers 73% of the state, which is up 10% in the last week.
16% of Arizona is classified under exceptional drought, which is the worst drought category.
Exceptional drought has increased 6% in the last week, covering an area stretching from far northeast Maricopa County to the Four Corners.
According to 4WARN Meteorologist Jeff Beamish, Tucson’s rainfall deficit dating back to October 1st has increased to 2.83".
May 23rd marked the 84th straight day without measurable rainfall in the Old Pueblo, which is the city’s longest dry streak since 2005.
Latest stats from NOAA indicate southern Arizona needs over a foot of rainfall between now & the end of September to eliminate the drought.
While the Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a slight chance for above average Monsoon rain, it’s highly unlikely 12"+ of rain will happen.
Dating back to 1895, Tucson has only recorded two Summer storm seasons with a foot or more of rainfall.

The Chama River Basin is at 18 percent of average, and the Upper Rio Grande is at 50 percent of average.
El Vado Reservoir could be nearly empty by July.
On the Rio Grande Project in southern New Mexico, the allocation to the two irrigation districts and Mexico is about 60 percent of a full allocation, the Bureau of Reclamation said.
Little inflow is expected to Elephant Butte Reservoir this spring, and it could be left holding less than 5 percent of its capacity at the end of the irrigation season.
(Photo: Susan Montoya Bryan/The Associated Press) Royce Fontenot, a senior hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, said the drought has developed rather quickly thanks to a dry winter.
Overall, nearly half of New Mexico and Arizona are facing extreme drought or worse conditions while about 60 percent of Utah is under severe drought, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center.
The Bureau of Reclamation is working with its partners to implement a survival strategy for the Rio Grande silvery minnow, as outlined in the 2016 Middle Rio Grande Biological Opinion.
And, they are working with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, Albuquerque Water Utility Authority, and other stakeholders to facilitate silvery minnow egg collection efforts.
Drought is prevalant across the American Southwest as extreme conditions spread from Oklahoma to Utah, according to new federal data released Thursday.
About 20 percent of the state is facing exceptional drought conditions — the worst possible classification.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s recently released U.S.
The impact is forecast to be especially strong in Arizona and New Mexico, both of which are already almost entirely in the grip of drought.
“These are the worst conditions for this region since spring of 2014.” He said that all of Arizona is impacted by some level of drought and about the half of the state is already at the level of Extreme Drought (D3) on the latest drought monitor.
“Snowpack levels in Arizona are less than 25 percent of average for this time of year, pretty much zero in many locations, and we are bracing for a busy fire season,” Crimmins said.
“This ups the odds of a shortage declaration on the river in the next couple of years, which would impact agricultural water deliveries to central Arizona.” The USDA has already designated most of Arizona as a primary natural disaster area as a result of losses and damages from the drought.
Here is a breakdown of current drought summaries for the Southwestern states as of April 3, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS): Arizona: 6.39 million people, or about 100 percent of the state’s population, has been affected by abnormal dryness or drought; California: 29.9 million people, about 80 percent; Colorado: 4.25 million people, about 85 percent; Nevada: 2.46 million people, about 91 percent; New Mexico: 2.06 million people, about 100 percent; Utah: 2.76 million people, about 100 percent.
Paul Gutierrez, professor and extension specialist for New Mexico State University, has been involved with livestock economics in the state for about 30 years and is no stranger to drought in the “Land of Enchantment.” “In New Mexico, we’re quite accustomed to droughts,” he said.
“In the desert, timing is everything when it comes to rain.
The last drought was followed by record cattle prices, Gutierrez said.
“The old saying is, ‘You can’t feed your way out of a drought,’ but many producers did because the cattle market was so strong,” he said.

The committee released a report last week showing statewide drought conditions worsened during March.
The continued dryness led to drought declarations on the Navajo Nation and in Yuma County.
Though a series of weak storms passed through Arizona, they left only insignificant snow, according to the report.
The southern half of the state remained dry and northern Arizona received only scattered light precipitation.
Water in the Colorado River is generated by snowmelt runoff from mountain ranges as far away as Wyoming and Colorado.
The Colorado River system, which provides Arizona with about 40 percent of its water supply, has experienced severe drought conditions since 2000.
Forecasters also predict runoff into Lake Powell, which supports the Upper Basin states north of Arizona’s Lee’s Ferry — Colorado New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — will be only 43 percent of normal this year.
ADWR reported this year’s projection for in-flow into Lake Powell is 3.1 million acre-feet, less than half its average 7.1 million acre-feet.
An acre-foot of water is 325,851 gallons, enough to cover an acre of land with a foot of water.
BuRec’s Colorado River Simulation System model also increased the probability of shortage in 2020 by 7 percent, in 2021 by 13 percent and in 2022 by 11 percent.

In mid-February, extreme drought conditions were declared by the NWS in southern third of Apache County and a slice of south-central Navajo County, but no further.
During March most of northern Arizona had 50 percent or less of normal rainfall or snowfall; with Show Low receiving just one-third of the normal amount or precipitation for the month.
Although the La Nina is expected to weaken as spring progresses, “odds are still tilted in favor of above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation through June,” the outlook states.
The Wildland Fire Potential Outlook from the National Interagency Fire Center shows near normal fire risks for Arizona through the months of April and May, but above normal fire dangers for the month of June, as fuel moisture levels in the forests are predicted to decline as spring progresses.
John Whatley, Assistant Fire Manager for the U.S. Forest Service at Apache Sitgreaves National Forest, says that the reason the fire danger remains at normal levels currently, is because the precipitation we have received occurred at pretty regular intervals, which has helped to moderate the fire danger, despite the drought.
April is expected to be at a normal fire danger trending to above normal.
According to Catrina Jenkins, emergency management deputy director for Navajo County, the White Mountain Fire Restrictions Coordinating Group meets weekly by phone or in-person to discuss fire danger conditions and to make decisions about when restrictions will be enacted.
The group is made up of officials from several levels of government, including the Forest Service, The state Department of Forestry and Fire Management, area tribal officials, county emergency management, local fire departments and law enforcement.
Last year, Stage 1 restrictions began on June 16.
Whatley said he expects that we may enter Stage 1 restrictions in mid-May, but that depends upon what happens this month.

TUCSON – Nearly all of the Grand Canyon State is experiencing severe drought.
This is according to the April 5th edition of the U.S. Drought Monitor.
93% of Arizona is in the severe drought category, while 48% of the state is under extreme drought.
Areas in extreme drought include portions of Pima & Cochise Counties, all of Santa Cruz County and a good chunk of central & northeastern Arizona.
Through April 4th, Tucson is running a yearly rainfall deficit of 0.61".
However, that rainfall deficit is 2.41" dating back to early October.
In order to break out of the drought, southern Arizona needs almost 6" rain in one month.
Tucson’s average April rainfall is only 0.31", marking the third driest month of the year historically for the Old Pueblo.
These ominous signs come as Arizona’s wildfire season starts up.
Grass and brush for much of the state are holding only about 3-4% of their normal moisture.

Ross D. Franklin, AP FILE – In this July 21, 2012 file photo a large dust storm, or haboob, sweeps across downtown Phoenix.
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File) ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Drought is tightening its grip across a wide swath of the American Southwest as farmers, ranchers and water managers throughout the region brace for what’s expected to be more warm and dry weather through the spring.
On the southern high plains, Oklahoma is ground zero for the worst drought conditions in the United States.
The exceptional drought in the Panhandle — an area dominated by agriculture — has more than doubled in size.
Many farmers rely on precipitation to help water their crops as pumping groundwater is the only other option.
Water orders will begin next week and officials with the local Irrigation district are encouraging growers to use their surface water as soon as crops demand it.
In Arizona, there’s concern for ranchers as the poor range conditions have left stock tanks dry.
Arizona residents have been living with a continuous drought declaration for years, said Tom Buschatzke, director of the state’s Department of Water Resources.
Part of that is due to the situation within the state’s own boundaries but also what’s happening along the Colorado River, which supplies water to about 40 million people and 6,300 square miles of farmland in seven states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
"It’s getting to the point where the debate will continue to ramp up about whether this is really a drought or whether this is the new normal, what’s the expected future," Buschatzke said.

This year they’re bare, and have been since last winter.
“Everybody talks about 2001 and 2002,” McAfee says.
When he runs into other farmers in the nearby communities of Cortez, Dolores and Mancos, McAfee says the conversations of the last 18 years follow a script.
What else is there to say?” McAfee says.
Climate change is already sapping some of the Colorado River’s flow, Udall says.
“By the end of the century almost 35 percent — a third of the river’s flow — would be gone because of these higher temperatures.” These conditions will strain the language and concepts we’ve formed to describe and make sense of the weather and climate conditions around us, Udall says.
“This is the ongoing aridification of the Colorado River Basin and we think we should start to talk about it in these terms rather than this older term, ‘drought.’” At a farm show at the Montezuma County fairgrounds outside Cortez, Colorado, the dry winter is top of mind.
“I don’t know if our concept of drought needs to change,” he says.“Our awareness of what’s going on definitely needs to change.
In the last 18 years, a couple wet years have given hope that the dry period over, at least temporarily.
“The problem is right now when you talk about drought you go into drought and you come out of drought,” he says.

TUCSON, Ariz. — More than 1,350 residents on Tucson’s south side have filed formal claims with the U.S. Air Force in the past year, claiming pollution left behind from its plants and other industries is causing cancer and other illnesses in their community.
But more than a half-dozen residents who filed claims told the Arizona Daily Star last week that they believe contaminated drinking water and possible other exposures to pollution left them with various cancers, heart ailments, autoimmune diseases such as lupus and other health problems.
It has been at least 70 years since Air Force contractors and other industries started dumping solvents and other industrial wastes into the ground near Tucson International Airport.
It has been more than 35 years since authorities first discovered trichloroethylene and other chemicals in the south side’s groundwater west of the airport, and at least seven city wells were shut down.
And it has been almost 27 years since the first of several settlements totaling well over $100 million was reached between several companies and government agencies and hundreds of south-siders who said they got cancer and other ailments from drinking the polluted water.
The latest claims are from residents who said they either weren’t ill when the original trichloroethylene lawsuits were filed, or didn’t know about the earlier lawsuits until it was too late to join them, said Linda Robles, a community activist who has spearheaded the filing of new claims.
Tucson Water officials have repeatedly said that no contaminated water has been served to the south-side areas since trichloroethylene-tainted wells were closed in the 1980s, but many residents have said they don’t believe that.
Cleanup of the trichloroethylene from the water started at a city-run treatment plant in 1994.
There has never been a full-scale epidemiological study of potential links between cancer, other illnesses and pollution on the south side.
Arizona’s state-run cancer registry has not found any unusual number of total cancers on the south side.