Rio Ruidoso stream forecast below normal flow

The prospects for a decent spring melt runoff across New Mexico will hinge on the future storm track, the authors of the New Mexico Basin Outlook wrote in the seasonal report for Jan. 1. "El Niño conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean are expected this winter and spring," Jason Weller, chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and J. Xavier Montoya, state conservationist with the NRCS Albuquerque office, wrote. While that prospect offers some hope for a better runoff season than recent years, "so far, that has not been the case," they concluded. "Most of the year 2014 was very dry with limited snowpack during the winter translating into extremely meager runoff in the spring," they wrote. "The monsoon season was marginal with only slight increases across the state, followed by a somewhat dry November. Going into New Mexico's fifth consecutive year of below average precipitation continues to leave both water supply and snowpack levels well below average." Although the snow season was predicted to start strong in northern New Mexico, it tracked south and delivered the majority of its snow to the southern half of the state, they wrote...more