We are honored to have Mark Ronchetti as a contributor this summer. He is a frequent visitor to Red River. If you happen to be in town for the January Snowmobile Hill Climb, you’ll see him with a flag in his hand at the starting line sending climbers on their way to the top!
Mark has been the Chief Meteorologist for KRQE TV-13 and Fox New Mexico in Albuquerque since 2006. Having grown up in Vermont, skiing and mountain climbing are second nature to him. That may also explain Mark’s loves of snow and his deep affection for Northern New Mexico, Red River and the Moreno Valley.
What a wild winter and early spring it has been so far in 2019. What was supposed to be a solid El Niño winter actually got off to a rather slow start. While we slipped into a weak El Niño in the fall the atmosphere didn’t really respond. In fact, after some promising October storms we went dry for much of November and early December. This led to the question around northern New Mexico, “What happened to El Niño?” I would briefly try to explain coupling of the atmosphere and people’s eye’s would glaze over and I would cut my nerd talk short and end with, “Don’t worry it’s coming soon!”
Well, it did eventually arrive. Right around Christmas, New Mexico, and more specifically Red River, began a pattern that would hold all the way through the rest of the winter. Steady storms provided a snow pack that was about 30% above average through the month of March.
What’s happened since then? More storms! Constant storms, actually, that have kept the snow pack at very high levels. El Niño is still in place and still delivering.
With all this having been said where do we go from here? El Niño is likely to hold on at least into early Summer. One would assume an El Niño summer would be really wet right? Well we hope so, but here’s the issue: summer El Niños are not exactly common. Most El Niño patterns fade in the spring and we fight out monsoon season with neutral ocean temperatures. Only seven times in the past 69 years has El Niño lasted into the summer. Well you’ve probably guessed it – this is year number eight. El Niño is likely to continue into the summer. If you are looking for a moisture pattern in those seven prior years you won’t find it. Those seven years have varied from very wet to some that were drier than average.
So where does that leave Red River? For the most part I expect their precipitation to remain above average through summer and early fall. The Climate Prediction Center is in line with this forecast as well. Some research from The Climate Assessment for the Southwest points to a slower start to the monsoon flow with a late finish. In any event, our summer monsoon outlook is promising. Given last year’s too-close-for-comfort Ute Park Fire, I think we could all use a year with more rain and less worry.