Waiting for the Rain

2006 was, meteorologically speaking, the oddest year in New Mexico history. The first six months of the year were the driest on record: there was something less than an inch’s worth of rain in that entire period. The second half of the year was the wettest on record— it came down in buckets.

We rejoiced. We’d just got over a nine-year-long drought, during which the Rio Grande turned at one point into a little ditch, and the sound of rain pounding on the skylights was like a chorus of angels. Our smallish lawn, which had been slowly dying during the drought, sprang again to life.

Our rainy season— the “monsoons”— occur in July and August, when New Mexico gets half its yearly rain. This year we seems to have abundant rain— except where I live. I think we’ve had less than ten rainstorms in the last six months. On a dozen occasions I’ve stepped outside and seen rain and lightning in a 360-degree circle around me— but directly overhead was blue sky and bright sunshine.

In short, I am cursed.

I’d really like to know what’s gone wrong with my little microclimate. This isn’t the first year this has happened— for the first couple years we lived here, we got no rain at all, though the rest of the state fared all right.

I am hoping that the remains of Hurricane Dean will push through and alter the situation, though I suspect they won’t have the strength to get this far north.

I’m going to have my very own Dust Bowl if this goes on much longer.