Drought — Chaves County Plains, New Mexico

2025-01-01 to 2025-01-31 · Chaves County Plains, New Mexico

Event narrative

Severe drought conditions persisted across the far southern border of the zone around Lake Arthur.

Wider weather episode

January 2025 was a colder than average month with some beneficial snow across central and southern NM from January 8th and 9th, north central NM during the middle of the month and across most of northern NM on January 29th and 30th. Despite this, snowpack remained well below the 30 year normal across the mountain ranges with some SNOTEL sites showing historically low snow water equivalent values. As a result, severe drought conditions across far southeastern areas slightly expanded with areas of severe drought added to northern areas of the northwest plateau, far northwest highlands, Tusa Mountains, much of the southwest mountains, and all of the San Francisco River Valley. An area of extreme drought was added to the southern portion of the San Francisco River Valley, including Glenwood.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1225992. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.