It’s hard to tell this morning what yesterday’s howling dry winds did to our snowpack. It’s the sort of thing that can cause sublimation, which means the loss of snow straight to atmospheric drying without ever having a chance to melt and make it to the rivers. It looks like some snow may have fallen …
Continue reading ‘Tracking flows on New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande as irrigation season begins’ »
The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District’s crews will usher the first water into the ditches of New Mexico’s middle valley Feb. 26, district Water Distribution Division Manager Matt Martinez told the district’s board at yesterday afternoon’s meeting. The early water doesn’t go to irrigators right away. It’s needed to “charge” the system, wetting earthen ditches …
Folks in Colorado’s San Luis Valley are engaged in a bold experiment in western water management – charging farmers for the water they use. Jerd Smith explains: A new rule approved by the area’s largest irrigation district, known as Subdistrict 1, and the Alamosa-based Rio Grande Water Conservation District, sets fees charged to pump water …
Continue reading ‘In Colorado’s San Luis Valley, paying for the water they use’ »
I’ve been updating the crufty old code I use to generate graphs to help me (and colleagues) think about river flows. This one’s a little busy, so maybe for specific nerd colleagues’ use, and not general consumption? It’s based on a request from a friend who uses these, and asked for a visualization of the …
Continue reading ‘Rio Grande flow at Otowi in decline, fancy graph edition’ »
This Rio Grande crossing, just south of Belen, 30-plus miles downstream from Albuquerque, has changed dramatically since Jack Delano took the picture above in spring 1943. The Bosque I’ve stared at Delano’s picture often, because of the story it tells – a broad open river valley. It’s nothing like that today. I pieced together …
Continue reading ‘New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande: forest of cottonwoods, forest of pecans’ »
Work is moving forward on a new park sort of thing to mark an important piece of Albuquerque’s historical geography: the old Atrisco ditch heading. Carolyn Carlson reports in the new City Desk ABQ (yay non-profit journalism!) that the Bernalillo County Commission adopted the “Atrisco Acequia Madre Master Plan” at its Jan. 9 meeting. It’ll …
Continue reading ‘Somos Atrisco: Anchoring greater Albuquerque’s heritage’ »
New Mexico once again fell short in 2023 of the requirement set out in the Rio Grande Compact to deliver water to Elephant Butte Reservoir for use in Southern New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico, delivering ~25,000 acre feet less than the Compact requires, according to preliminary estimates presented at Monday’s meeting of the Middle Rio …
There’s a fun feel of community pride, and joy, in the wave of front page stories in Albuquerque newspapers in 1971 when jazz great John Lewis, founder of the Modern Jazz Quartet, brought the group to his home town to play with the Albuquerque Symphony Orchestra at the University of New Mexico’s Popejoy Hall. Lewis …
Three months into the 2023-24 water year, we have our first early look at what sort of runoff to expect on the Rio Grande in the coming year, and it doesn’t look great. The January NRCS median forecast for March-July runoff is 42 percent of “normal” at Otowi, the critical forecast point where the Rio …
Continue reading ‘Lousy start to the 2023-24 snowpack year on the Rio Grande’ »
This was a big flow year on New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande, but weird, in ways that highlight the challenges we face. Flow in the River Total flow into New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley (measured at Otowi) sits at 1.26 million acre feet with two more days’ flow to go, so round it off …
Continue reading ‘New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande 2023 Review’ »