The Rio Grande was running fast and wide around a bend near the Buckman Direct Diversion near Diablo Canyon one recent April day — a healthy sign that the snowpacked mountains of southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico are already providing a welcome, healthy spring runoff.

“It’s not the 100-year flood,” said a city of Santa Fe worker watching the Rio Grande flow that day. “But it’ll do.”

Water experts and conservationists agree. Following a particularly dry 2017-18 winter season, the spring 2019 runoff into the region’s rivers, streams and arroyos is looking downright wonderful, offering at least a brief respite from continuing drought conditions.



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