Southwest Snowpack

Below-average precipitation and warmer-than-average temperatures across most of the Southwest after December caused the water contained in snowpacks, or snow water equivalent (SWE), to be persistently below average. Streamflow forecasts, which partly reflect the amount of past precipitation, were similarly below average for most of the winter.  

Currently, snowpacks in Arizona have completely melted, while all but a few SNOTEL monitoring sites that measure SWE in New Mexico are reporting no snow (Figure 8). Some of the sites in both states completely melted about four weeks earlier than average. The only basin in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah with near-average snowpacks is the Cimarron watershed in New Mexico. However, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), which administers the SNOTEL sites, cautions that the data in this basin may not be accurate. The Cimarron watershed was one of only two basins in both Arizona and New Mexico to receive more than 100 percent of average precipitation between October 1 and May 17.

In the Upper Colorado River and Rio Grande basins, no watersheds had more than 90 percent of average precipitation between October 1 and May 17; most basins received less than 80 percent. Consequently, all monitoring stations in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming currently report well below-average SWE and streamflow forecasts for both the Colorado River and Rio Grande are well below average (see Streamflow Forecast).