Gallup: "Abnormally Dry"
Official government validation of what my water tanks have already told me; the soaking monsoons of July and August never arrived in my canyon this year (3.66" below normal YTD according to KOB-TV Channel 4). The USDA publishes a monthly drought index and map of the state. The western portion of Mckinley County is categorized as Abnormally Dry, the first ranked stage before 4 stages of drought. Rain fell often in the higher mountains in July, but no soaking moisture has fallen on my garden since the second week of June (0.8"). Scarcely, 100 gallons of rainwater collected in my cisterns during the past two months. My dry-land farmed row of white hopi corn is stunted and withering--starkly different than my drip irrigated rows of the same planting, and the garden has been surviving on minimal waterings as I watch the cumulus clouds build fruitlessly each afternoon in anticipation of something more than shade. And yet, nothing.
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