NM heading into another year of severe drought

Forecasters with the National Weather Service say the first two months of 2014 marked the driest start to any year on record for New Mexico, and things haven’t improved.

Senior meteorologist Chuck Jones says the state received less than one-third of its normal snow and rain over the winter, and the lack of snowpack in the mountains is prompting concerns among water managers.

State and federal officials shared the news Friday during their monthly drought briefing.

While record rains helped some areas last fall, the Rio Grande didn’t fare as well. Federal wildlife managers are scrambling to find enough water to keep the river flowing this summer.

They say strategically timed flows could help the endangered silvery minnow, whose numbers are near the lowest since monitoring began in 1993.