Driving from Albuquerque to Denver, as NewMexiKen did yesterday, one is simply amazed (dismayed) at the absence of snow. While evident on the highest peaks, there is nothing but a few melting patches at 10,000 feet, and none below. At least that was the case in the New Mexico Sangre de Cristos, above the San Luis Valley and around South Park.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports on New Mexico.
Snowpack in the Sangre de Cristos dropped from 89 percent of normal at the beginning of March to 50 percent of normal at present. The Rio Chama Basin and the upper Rio Grande exhibit similar statistics. The Jemez Basin snowpack dropped from 79 percent to 16 percent of normal.
Those figures are dramatic, Liles said, given that snow is usually accumulating in the mountains in March. But they are not isolated: Snowpack is turning into an early runoff throughout the West.
The Rocky Mountain News sums it up for Colorado.
High country snowpack dropped alarmingly in March, pushing the state into its fifth year of drought and making strict summer watering rules almost a certainty for many communities.
The statewide snowpack – a critical indicator of fresh water supplies – measured just 65 percent of average Thursday, well below the 94 percent of average recorded one year ago, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service.