By Jim Mimiaga

Except for a much-ballyhooed sighting of "500 or so raindrops" that fell near Towaoc Wednesday, the region has been unseasonably dry and warm, with fall temperatures reaching the high 60s on several occasions.

"It’s been 57 days since we’ve seen any measurable rain here," said local meteorologist Jim Andrus yesterday. "The winter looks like it will be warm and dry because of the La Nina weather phenomenon."

La Nina has the opposite effect of alter-ego, El Nino, in that it forms a large mass of cold water (rather than a warm one) in the Pacific, which works to push the jet stream and its winter storms further north than normal. The result is less snow for the Four Corners and more precipitation for the Pacific Northwest.

The region is already feeling the effects, with the last three months showing below-average rainfall and above-average temperatures. September rainfall was measured at three-quarters of an inch, or slightly below normal. October saw a trace of rain, falling way short of its average precipitation of 1.5 inches, and there has been no measurable rainfall in November thus far, way behind its monthly average of 1.16 inches.

Temperatures tell a similar story. Overall October days were 2.7 degrees higher than normal, with November temperatures already reaching above-normal levels for the month, Andrus said.

The lack of rain is already having a negative effect on local farms. Dry-land winter wheat crops are struggling to sprout, and without more fall moisture the crop will likely suffer in both quality and quantity when harvested next summer.

"The yields will probably be lower than they would be if the crop was coming up earlier," said Abdel Berrada, a researcher with the Colorado State University Agriculture station in Yellow Jacket.

He added that wheat planted on previously fallow land will probably fare better than wheat planted in fields that just produced pinto beans because the fallow land has retained more moisture. Winter wheat is planted in the fall, typically rotated in shortly after the pinto-bean harvest. It stops growing in the winter and then resumes in the spring, with harvest taking place during the summer months.

"It’s coming up a little slow, but the fields are greening up like they are supposed to," said CSU Extension Director Jan Sennhenn.

According to the National Weather Service, all of this sunny weather in Cortez does not constitute a drought as of yet, because most of this region’s precipitation arrives during spring storms in March and April. A drought is defined as a sustained period of abnormally dry weather that creates an imbalance in water supplies and creates crop damage.