HELENA -- Montana's sixth straight year of drought shows no signs of breaking this summer and could sound the death knell for family farmers and Main Street businesses alike, a new state report shows.

The Governor's Drought Advisory Committee released its report on the 2004 growing season Thursday and concluded the odds for continued drought across much of the state is very high and the potential for the enduring drought to damage the 2004 crop is likewise high.

The 33-page report opens with a dire description of ''4th and 5th generation farmers and ranchers" losing the family businesses as the wave of that lost production crashes on the shore of even Montana's largest cities.

''This is the story of the human toll of drought," the report reads.

The report also raises the suggestion that the drought may not be an isolated event at all, but part of a long-term drying trend that some research indicates is actually normal for the American West -- one that no one has ever experienced before.

''Perhaps we have been in a relatively wet period since the first sod was turned with the opening of the West," the report reads. ''And now we are in the midst of long-term change."

This summer is expected to bring a host of water shortages, the report says, affecting everything from farming to city water supplies.

The signs of drought are everywhere. Mountain snowpack ranges from ''well below average" to about 80 percent of average across the state, the report says. Soil across the state is so dry, it absorbed most of the spring runoff. While a handful of streams have normal flows for this time of year -- and some are even above normal -- streamflows are below normal from Shelby to Billings. In addition, the state's ground water has ''dropped considerably over the course of the five years of drought," the report reads. Some towns that depend on wells for their drinking water are now going dry.

''It's just overwhelming for people," said Jesse Aber, who staffs the Drought Advisory Council. ''We could well be seeing a drought that is on a larger scale than we've seen in the 20th century or thus far in the 21st century."

Even if rains started tomorrow, Aber said, the state would need several years of above average moisture to recover from the drought.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

- When watering your yard, put a pan in lawn and turn the water off when a half inch of water has collected.

- Cut back watering your lawn to two days a week.

- To take the stress off fish struggling to live in warmer, scarce waters, remove the barb from your fishing hook to accommodate easier catch-and-release tactics.

- Fish only in the early morning when the water levels are coolest.

- Towns can consider not watering some city parks this summer.

- Schools should refrain from watering grassy play areas when school is on summer break.

Source: Jesse Aber, the Governor's Drought Advisory Council.