Drought in West Central Highlands, New Mexico

Extreme drought was introduced to the southern third of the zone.

April saw below to well below normal precipitation across a majority of New Mexico, with the exception of a small area of the northwestern mountains. The average temperature anomaly was also generally 1 to 5 degrees above normal over nearly all of the state. This led to a notable expansion of extreme drought conditions over northeastern NM, and severe drought conditions over the eastern plains. While western areas saw below normal precipitation, the actual difference from normal was still low given April is climatologically a very dry month already. This allowed for little to no change in drought conditions over this portion of the state.