Brace for a bleak water year on top of ‘nightmare’ fire weather season
New Mexico faces a bleak water year alongside extreme fire risk, with state officials warning of compounding climate impacts heading into summer 2025.
As New Mexico braces for a dangerous fire season, officials say water supplies are also running dangerously low across much of the state.
Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.
New Mexico’s snowpacks melted a month earlier than usual, making a bad water situation worse for New Mexico’s rivers and the people and ecosystems depending on them.
Climate change delivered a double-whammy on top of record low snow for New Mexico, said Andrew Mangham, a senior service hydrologist for National Weather Service in Albuquerque.
The ripple of the rapid melt has hurt Utah and Colorado as well, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration May 1 drought report. Governors for Washington state and Utah declared states of emergencies for drought in their states.
Federal projections for the upper Rio Grande expect only 12% of normal water from snow will make it to the river. Snow accounts for three-quarters of the river’s supply.
“We’ve already seen the bump in all of the rivers from snowmelt, that peak flow is already past us now,” Mangham said, estimating the state experienced the second-driest winter in 130 years. “In terms of volume going through any point on the river, our forecasts all show it’s somewhere between a third to a half of what is normal.”
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New Mexico’s meager snowpack and current water conditions bode poorly for fire season, as windy and hot conditions are expected to continue, and the lack of winter moisture left forests drier than usual.
“We’re looking at a nightmare of a fire weather season, I’m not gonna sugarcoat that,” Mangham said.
Overall, the short term forecasts predict New Mexico’s weather to be warmer, drier and windier, although possible storms could cause some spring flooding — such as in the Ruidoso burn scar this weekend.
Long range forecasts paint a potentially brighter picture for the seasonal summer rains, which are possibly going to be stronger than usual in the western part of the state, while the remainder is looking like it will be typical.
“But we still gotta make it through the spring to get to monsoon season,” Mangham said.
Danielle Prokop covers the environment and local government in Southern New Mexico for Source NM.
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