Recent rains jump-started growing plants in the New River Valley but have done little to alleviate concerns raised by months of abnormally dry conditions.

Worried farmers, gardeners and firefighters can take little comfort from climatologists' expectation of a dryer-than-normal growing season.

A lack of rain in February and March resulted in a designation of "abnormally dry" for the New River Valley on the National Drought Monitor Map.

Steve Keighton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the area is suffering from a rain deficit of about 5 inches since Jan. 1. He reported that precipitation in January was about normal but very low in February and March. It was the driest March on record.

Phillip Stenger of the State Climatology Office at the University of Virginia pointed to a report issued April 21 that noted that rain in the first half of April helped reduce the precipitation deficits in some areas. But because the rains were scattered, the report said, and other areas remain dry.

"Pasture is the greatest problem right now," said Chuck Shorter, who farms in Prices Fork. "Folks are running out of hay with no grass. We need some warm nights and some water. Toms Creek looks like it normally would about July or August."

Despite the rains during the weekend and this week, Shorter said he threw out some hay to his cattle Wednesday.

Shorter was concerned about alfalfa he had sowed March 27 and was slow in coming up. A walk-through of the field Tuesday showed he had about a 50 to 60 percent crop. He speculated that the seeds had germinated during the first early showers and died when no more rain fell for a while. He plans to replant the whole field.

"It's the driest I've ever seen this time of year, and I'm 71 years old," said Joe Worrell, a farmer in Pulaski County's Back Creek community. "I've never seen the groundwater this low."

Worrell is concerned about the water supply for his home, which is supplied by a spring, and about water for his livestock.

He pointed to a neighbor's roadside pond that he has never before seen dry this time of year, and to the low level of Slabtown Branch, which flows into Back Creek, as further examples of the lack of rain.

Paul Haynes of Christians-burg, who runs Haynes Drilling Co., said he hasn't seen any problems with wells yet but hopes the rains continue.

"It takes a long time for groundwater to go dry and a long time to come back," he said.

A tired Virginia Department of Forestry employee, David Cooper, said the recent showers have slowed forest fires so the firefighters can get to them a little quicker. Cooper, who is responsible for forests in Pulaski and Giles County, has been busy in recent weeks coordinating firefighting efforts in several mountainous areas.

The burning bans that were in effect in Pulaski and Montgomery counies were lifted earlier this week after the rains came.

Other regions of the state are drier than the New River Valley, the state climatologist's report indicates. The Roanoke, Middle James and Chowan drought regions have received only about three-quarters of their normal April rainfall and are the driest regions in the state.

Spring precipitation is "storage" that helps in early summer, the report said. "We do not generally have that 'storage' in the ground in 2006. By mid-May, evaporation will begin to outstrip even normal precipitation, so the development of a significant agricultural drought seems very likely unless there are timely and substantial rains in coming weeks."

Long-range forecasting models call for 2.75 inches of rain statewide through May 6.