A historically dry monsoon season this year ended with a deluge of rain across New Mexico, including Albuquerque, where September was the wettest month on record. The rains restored flow to the beset Rio Grande, which had run dry through parts of the Middle Rio Grande Valley for almost half a year.
But it’s still no guarantee of the river’s long-term health.
“The river experienced its initial river channel drying on March 27, which is the earliest we've seen it dry since they've been monitoring river channel drying, and it reconnected on September 19,” said Anne Marken, water operations division manager for the Middle Rio Grande Valley Conservancy District, which manages the river from Cochiti Dam to Elephant Butte Dam.
“(The rains) also reconnected the river from Cochiti down to Elephant Butte Reservoir, and helped New Mexico make some significant Rio Grande compact deliveries down to Elephant Butte,” said Marken, referring to water delivery obligations New Mexico has to Texas and Mexico.
“Storage in Elephant Butte went from 27,000 acre feet at the beginning of the month to about 93,000 acre feet yesterday,” Marken said.
“So significant deliveries to the compact, which is good news for New Mexico, and all of this is on the heels of one of the driest summers that we've experienced, and so it's a really welcome change in condition,” she said.
The rains did cause some flooding, and quite a few canals along the valley needed maintenance, Marken said.
“In several locations, canal banks needed to be reconstructed and sediment removed from the canals . . . But our crews have been working very hard over the past couple of weeks, and most facilities are back up and running,” she said.
October has been fairly dry though, and despite some rains expected this week, Marken says there’s no guarantee parts of the Middle Rio Grande won’t dry up in Socorro County in the coming weeks.
The National Weather Service forecasts cooler temperatures toward the end of this week, with scattered rains expected mainly across the northern and eastern parts of the state. Extended forecasts project more widespread rainfall across New Mexico could occur beginning next Tuesday.
