Drought pervades West

RENO, Nev. (AP) — From the brittle hillsides of Southern California to the drying fields of Idaho, from Montana to New Mexico, a relentless drought is worsening across most of the West, water supplies are dwindling and the threat of wildfires is rising.

“Most of the West is headed into six years of drought and some areas are looking at seven years,” said Rick Ochoa, weather program manager at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Arizona is facing its worst drought on record. Two enormous reservoirs on the Colorado River are only half full. Some farmers in southern Idaho might not get any irrigation water this summer.

The mountain snowpack, a crucial reservoir that in a good year holds water until it is needed, was half of the normal March level or less in many areas.

“We had one of the warmest Marches on record … and we didn’t get any precipitation almost anywhere in the West,” said Kelly Redmond, regional climatologist for the Desert Research Institute’s Western Regional Climate Center in Reno. “So not only did we not add to our supply in March, which is usually a very healthy month, but the temperature was so warm that the melting started early.”

The mountains of Colorado and northern New Mexico got more than 1 foot of snow this weekend, and meteorologists said the Albuquerque, N.M., area could be looking at record rainfall this month, but it is only a start toward recovery.

“It’ll help. It just depends on how soon the next one comes,” farmer Larry Palser said in Colorado’s Washington County. “It’ll buy us some time.”

The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service says there is a potential for water restrictions and widespread crop and pasture losses in central Nevada, southern Idaho, most of south-central Montana and eastern and southwestern Utah.

Most of southern Idaho and parts of southwest Montana are in “exceptional drought,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. That is a step worse than “extreme drought,” which the USDA says best describes other parts of Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Colorado.

“In terms of fire, I think everybody is real nervous,” said Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council in Portland, Ore. Already this year, 10,000 acres have burned in Arizona, along with 8,500 acres in Colorado.