Officially, the Rio Grande gauge at the Central Avenue crossing in Albuquerque’s Barelas neighborhood says the state’s most important river has water. But dog walkers and kids seen making mud castles in the center of the main channel (this is not safe, by the way), Wednesday afternoon may beg to differ.
At 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon, the Central gauge measured the river’s water depth at just 1.08 feet, though the gauge itself is tucked up near the bank in a wide spot that is slightly deeper than the main channel, which was entirely dry. That’s the lowest the river has measured here in more than a year.
Bernalillo County has received 0.71 inches less rain than normal according to the U.S. government’s official drought monitor services at drought.gov, but 75 percent of the river’s water comes from Colorado and Northern New Mexico snow pack, according to the EPA.
That snow pack was less than impressive this past winter, leading to lower spring flows.
A recent report from the EPA on future Rio Grande water flows noted that “climate change has caused average temperatures to rise, which in turn has caused the Earth’s water cycle to speed up, increasing in the rate at which water evaporates from soil and transpires from plants… Low levels of winter precipitation overall lead to a “dry” snow drought, while warmer temperatures that cause winter precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow can cause a “warm” snow drought. Both types of snow drought can affect the mountain snowpack that feeds the Rio Grande. There are already ongoing, notable, and consistent decreases in snowpack in the mountains across southern Colorado.”
The last time the river ran dry through the Duke City was in 2022, “before that it hadn’t happened since the 1980’s” according to John Fleck, author of the local water and climate blog at inkstain.net.
