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<br />Long-term weather outlook <br /> <br />Northwestern Colorado has had precipitation in March and looks better than most of the state in <br />that regard. We have a 50% chance of more precipitation in April, May and June, while <br />southwestern Colorado will have 15%. Weare not going to get a normally wet spring. <br />Northeastern Colorado normally does well with precipitation during this mid time of the year. If <br />we could get a wet monsoon, we would use less water for irrigation. The eastern part of <br />Colorado has the best chance in the next six months to catch up with precip. It would be very <br />difficult for the northern mountains to catch up. El Nino has slackened off a bit in the last two <br />weeks, which is not what we wanted. In the next 6 months El Nino can make us or break the <br />drought in Eastern Colorado. There is much uncertainty when you get to the end of the year. It <br />appears the northern and central mountains will get more snow this coming midwinter like in <br />1998 and 1999. El Nino could be good news for us in August if it sticks around. The last 10 <br />years have been exceptionally wet. When those dry spells end, the eastern plains have the best <br />chance of getting moisture in May, June and July. <br /> <br />Commissioner McKenzie addressed the group regarding drought on her district and what she felt <br />could be effects from proposed legislation currently before the General Assembly. <br /> <br />Municiole Water/Barry Cress <br /> <br />We have no municipal systems that are unable to meet demand yet. We see folks proposing to <br />set water restrictions, and if they use surface water, they are trying to preserve the supplies they <br />have now. The municipal water supply task force has been in touch with all the agencies and <br />entities that are listed as participants in that and we are now ready to get that task force going. <br />We have a series of workshops coming up in the second and third week of May. We will be <br />addressing the drought situation in those workshops and probably have some handouts to help <br />out water system managers. Dan McAuliffe wants to follow-up on Lary Lang's question to BOR <br />regarding carryover storage situation in federal reservoirs and helping provide and technical <br />support to the impact task force. <br /> <br />In the governors letter he has asked that the impact task forces get together and assess what <br />impacts we see in the short term and get back to him by May 1. Some of this information we <br />discuss will be included in the report that Brad Lundahl will be compiling and getting to the <br />governor's office. The impact task force will meet immediately after this meeting to go over <br />that. <br /> <br />Wildfire <br /> <br />The summer of 2000 was ftre danger was the worst in 50 years in Colorado. Weare working <br />with insurance companies and doing all we can do to prevent ftres and deal with the situation. <br />To date, we have had over 400 wildfires. This is very unusual for this early in the season. <br /> <br />Agriculture <br /> <br />Two of the most immediate indicators that we watch in Agriculture this time of the year is our <br />winter wheat crop and also range conditions for livestock grazing because it gives us a good <br />