KSJD Local Newscast - May 6, 2025

Recent stormy weather in the Four Corners has brought welcome relief to a parched landscape. Unfortunately, the precipitation wasn’t enough to lift the area out of its lingering drought. Longtime local weather observer James Andrus tells KSJD that as of Tuesday afternoon, only about a quarter-inch of rain had dropped on Cortez. He says, “That’s not a drought-buster.” Andrus reports that moisture for the year to date was 62 percent of normal at the end of April, and the snow-water equivalent in the Dolores basin was at just about a quarter of the median amount. High temperatures aren’t helping. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says rapid snowmelt occurred across Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico in April, pushing some basins into snow drought in less than a month. Utah’s governor declared a drought emergency in 17 counties, including San Juan. In Arizona, many Sno-Tel locations had little to no snowpack for much of the winter, and melt-out has now taken place. In northern New Mexico, many Sno-Tel stations lost all their snow three to four weeks early. The recent storm did bring snow to higher elevations in the Four Corners, including about two feet in Taos, New Mexico. The storm should move out Wednesday, after which warmer-than-normal temperatures will resume. Andrus says, “This was a slow-moving storm. At least it lingered a while and gave us something to settle the dust.”