Climate scientists using computer models to simulate the 1930s Dust Bowl on the U.S Great Plains have found that dust raised by 

Runoff overflowing from the Verde River reservoirs continues to slosh down the front of the Tempe Town Lake dam, into the normally dry lower Salt River, but don't be fooled, state officials said Tuesday. This drought isn't over yet.

Tracking snow levels is a job for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. In the mid-1930s, the U.S. Congress mandated the service, then the Soil Conservation Service, to measure and track snowpack in the Western United States and Alaska. Until 1980 these measurements were taken manually.

Dry conditions could get worse in western Nebraska, where a global weather pattern let crops wither and keep water levels at Lake McConaughy near record-low levels this summer. State climatologist Al Dutcher delivered the grim prediction Thursday at a water conference in Holdrege, saying there could be massive problems with crops if the forecast were to come true.

Forecasters are holding to their predictions of a dry winter for Colorado despite blasts of snow that have continued into mid-January and set snowpack records in the southwestern mountains.

A moderate La Nina is expected to continue through spring, bringing wet conditions to the northern Rockies and continued dryness to the Southeast, government climate experts said Thursday. La Nina is a cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can cause changes in weather patterns around the world.

Storms in late 2007, coupled with massive snowfall this week, pulled Colorado out of drought conditions, surprising state weather watchers. But the relatively heavy snowpack now could be offset by warm, dry conditions in late spring, said Nolan Doesken, state climatologist. “La Nina is still in place, and in forecasting, the odds are that it will stay warm and dry,” Doesken said.

The winter of 2007-08 is off to a puzzling start in the minds of Colorado weather experts. "It's definitely got some of us scratching our heads," said Mike Gillespie, the snow survey supervisor for the U.S.

2008 will be slightly cooler than recent years globally but will still be among the top 10 warmest years on record since 1850 and should not be seen as a sign global warming was on the wane, British forecasters said.

The early winter snow has belied fears that a La Niña weather pattern could create drought conditions in 2008. Snowpack levels in the Dolores, San Miguel, Animas and Upper Rio Grande river basins are between 120 percent and 150 percent of normal.