Large swaths of the United States are in desperate need of soaking rainfall as drought continues to deepen. … The driest state compared with its average has been Utah, where there has been a 59 percent reduction in precipitation since October. Not far behind are Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, seeing a 46, 43 and 39 percent reduction, respectively. “The West’s hydrology and climate are very much out of sync with the historical rhythm,” said assistant Utah state climatologist Jon Meyer. … Record low winter snowfall and record high March temperatures resulted in extremely premature snowpack melt and dismal water runoff volumes. That is also the case in Colorado, where “the mountain snowpack is in historically bad shape,” Colorado state climatologist Russ Schumacher wrote earlier this month.

Other drought monitoring news:

• Cowboy State Daily (Cheyenne, Wyo.): Dry, dry, dry: Wyoming gets less than half of anticipated precipitation in April
• NASA: Blog: Snow is scarce in the Upper Colorado Basin