What would it take to fix New Mexico's drought?

What would it take to get New Mexico out of megadrought?

The short answer: water.

The longer answer: multiple years of heavy winter snows.

The Southwestern U.S. — including New Mexico — has faced a steady drought for a quarter century, improving and degrading as seasonal moisture comes and goes. The short-term drought in the state is now relatively mild, thanks to a rainy summer monsoon, but the longer-term conditions paint a different picture — one that’s harder to fix, said Andrew Mangham, a senior service hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.

“A really good, aggressively wet monsoon season — just one — can wipe out drought effects in terms of the short term,” Mangham said. “This can improve fine fuels, by which I mean grasses and shrubs; those can be quite he