Drought Relief as Season Winds Down

As Winter and the official snow pack season winds down, agriculture producers in Colorado and around the west have a lot to be relieved about.

According to the USDA, a significant snowfall in February puts Western snow pack water equivalency on a pace to reach, or even surpass, record accumulations from two seasons ago.

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says the cold snowy weather did much to relieve areas of concern such as Southern Colorado, Western Washington and California.

But he says there are some lingering drought issues especially in the Four Corners region.

When the abundant snowpack begins to melt over the next few weeks, initially that will go into recharging soil moisture and replenishing stream flow. He says we won't immediately see all the benefits of the initial runoff. But even in the hardest hit drought areas across the southwest there should be a fair bit of improvement. That will eventually translate into improvement in low reservoir levels in states like Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.

And as he said the southern part of New Mexico will be the hot spot for any remaining areas of western drought.