Some stretches of New Mexico have gone months without meaningful moisture, leaving farmers and ranchers to make difficult decisions as long-term forecasts call for drought to intensify across the already arid state.
Experts with the National Weather Service talked of pitiful snowpack levels in the mountain ranges that feed the state’s rivers ahead of the release Thursday of the latest drought map.
The map shows all but a small sliver of southern New Mexico is grappling with some level of dryness, with extreme drought increasing in the northwest corner of the state.
Officials with the federal Farm Service Agency in New Mexico say many ranchers are scrambling to buy up as much alfalfa as they can to supplement feed supplies while others from Cuba to Carrizozo are being forced to cut their herds.
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