From Mexico to Canada, drought grips West

RENO, Nev. — 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, where a once-promising snowpack is shrinking early, water supplies are dwindling and the threat of wildfires is already on the rise.

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

Arizona faces its worst drought on record.

New Mexico farmers are bracing for dramatic reductions in water supplies, and in parts of southeast Idaho, the only farmers who will get water this summer might be those with water rights dating to the late 1800s.

On the edge of the Sierra, lingering drought is pitting residents against the Reno country club that hosts a national golf tournament in a battle over water from a mountain creek.

"Some part of the West has been in a state of drought since the winter of 1995-96," said Kelly Redmond, regional climatologist for the Desert Research Institute's Western Regional Climate Center in Reno.

"For the last year or two, it has extended all the way from the Mexican border to Canada pretty consistently," he said.

An unusually warm, dry March melted snowpack and increased wildfire threats, especially in southeast Oregon, half of Arizona, most of New Mexico and parts of Colorado.

The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service forecasts the 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.

"Drought? What drought? It rained here a couple of years ago," said Dick Larsen, spokesman for the Idaho Department of Water Resources.

He's straining for humor because most of southern Idaho is in a category the U.S. Agriculture Department calls "exceptional drought," along with parts of southwest Montana.

That's a step worse than "extreme drought," which the USDA says best describes the condition of other parts of Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Colorado.

Those states are heavily dependent on melting snow for water supplies — snow that has rapidly disappeared the past month across the region.