Drought in Espanola Valley, New Mexico

Extreme drought conditions from December 2021 continued in January 2022.

After a very active end of December 2021, the overall storm track wasn't favorable to New Mexico in January 2022. High winds were once again the most dominant feature across northern and central New Mexico during the first half of the month. A couple winter storm systems finally brought rounds of snow mainly to central and eastern New Mexico during the latter half of the month, but poor liquid equivalent totals did nothing to improve drought conditions across the area. In fact, January 2022 saw the return of exceptional drought conditions across portions of Union and Colfax counties. Drought conditions across the remainder of the state worsened with about 78 percent in at least severe drought conditions. About 30 percent of that was categorized as extreme or exceptional drought. Precipitation totals across much of northern and central New Mexico generally ranged from one quarter to one half inch. High terrain areas across north central and western New Mexico fared better with precipitation totals closer to one inch.