The Rio Grande crosses a dam in San Acacia in March. High temperatures and below-normal precipitation could make drought worse across New Mexico this spring and summer. (Roberto E. Rosales/)
Water wells on some San Juan County ranches are going dry.
A grass fire spread quickly across 30 acres of parched rangeland in northern Lea County earlier this month, and ranchers are grappling with extremely-dry pastures in New Mexico’s northeast corner.
An on-again, off-again pattern of winter storms has boosted Rio Grande Basin snowpack to above-average levels.
But higher temperatures and below-normal precipitation could make drought worse across New Mexico this spring and summer.
Dave Simeral, a Desert Research Institute climatologist, said during a Tuesday drought briefing with federal weather agencies that much of the Southwest benefited from record rain and snow in the late fall and early winter.
“Unfortunately, eastern portions of both New Mexico and Colorado were both kind of shut out from that precipitation,” he said, “and then we had this drying trend that started in January.”
Portales experienced its fifth-driest October to March period on record and ninth-driest January to March.
Nearly all of New Mexico is experiencing some level of drought, according to the US Drought Monitor.
A year ago at this time, more than half the state was in the most severe drought category.
That measure has dipped to about 5.5% this year.
Pockets of exceptional drought are impacting the state’s northeast and southeast corners, as well as Socorro and Sierra counties.
The National Climate Prediction Center forecasts above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation across the Southwest for April through June.
Simeral said that forecast likely means that even robust regional snowpack levels may not be enough to address the impacts of long-term drought.
“We’ve got some pretty decent snow water equivalent numbers, but they’re dropping off rather quickly,” he said. “We’ve seen some really dry soils and lots of below-normal reservoir storage across most of the states in the West.”
Theresa Davis is a Report for America corps member covering water and the environment for the .
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