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Rainfall didn't do much to put a dent in drought

John Aguilar, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 10, 2006 at midnight

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Much of Colorado received a thorough soaking over the weekend but the rain didn't do much to beat back the state's stubborn drought, according to weather experts.

"It'll probably be forgotten in a month," said Kyle Fredin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder.

Fredin said the weekend's rainfall, the product of a slow-moving tropical air mass making its way north from Mexico, brought Denver's precipitation total to 3.79 inches since the beginning of the year, just 44 percent of normal.

Slightly less than an inch of rain was recorded at Denver International Airport over the weekend, while some parts of the metro area received up to 1.7 inches.

Parts of Cheyenne County in eastern Colorado received up to 8 inches of rain in what meteorologists described as a "localized" phenomenon.

Mike Gillespie, a snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, said the only unusual thing about the weekend storm was that it occurred in July.

"It would have been pretty typical of something in April or May," he said.

Gillespie said despite flooding that devoured roads in southern Douglas County and that shut down Interstate 25 in the Pueblo area, the rain overall wouldn't do much to alleviate the state's tenacious dry spell.

"It's not going to be a summer rain event that breaks the drought, but a couple of good years of snowpack," he said.

Tom Cech, manager of the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District, was a little more charitable in his description of the storm, calling it a "beautiful rain."

"It sure is the answer to a lot of people's prayers," he said of the moisture's effect on the state's eastern ranching and farming operations. "As dry as it's been for the last six months, this is remarkable."

Cech said the storm would give farmers and ranchers a few days' reprieve from having to irrigate their cropland at a time when groundwater is scarce.

But he warned that as fast as the rain came, it would be absorbed and used up by thirsty crops.

"It's very helpful, but we live in such a dry climate, the effects will only be around for a few days or a week," Cech said.

Which still pleases David Eckhardt, a farmer in La Salle, who said the storm couldn't have come a day too soon.

"Every farmer in the area needed to be able to take a breath and relax a little," he said.

Eckhardt said the steady but consistent rainfall over the weekend was more valuable than a downpour that might come with a typical summer thunderstorm.

"It was a million-dollar rain coming down nice and slow, and it all got soaked in rather than running off," he said.

He said the water would give a boost to a variety of crops, including corn, sugar beets, pinto beans and alfalfa.

But Eckhardt said he's been around long enough to know that one long weekend of rain will not solve his long-term problems.

"It won't even make a dent in the drought," he said. "We've got a long way to go."

Staff writer Bianca Prieto contributed to this report.