Natl. Weather Service: Forecasts Leaning Towards "Robust" Monsoon Summer for New Mexico

With chile farmers making plans for a summer without any supplemental irrigation allotments, any news of rain is good news. Forecasters with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque say early month-to-month weather models point towards lots of good news this summer.

NWS Albuquerque cautioned against putting too much stock in this forecast yet, because forecasts get a little more unreliable each spring due to a "spring forecast barrier." That's a time when seasons change and inject a lot of unpredictability in the models -- as anyone who has endured 50-degree temperature wings in April in Albuquerque will tell you.

But if these early models hold, Arizona and New Mexico could be in for an "early and robust" monsoon season and that's great news for drought weary land.

Read more on climate, drought and our environment in The Paper.