… Glenn Merrill, hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s Salt Lake City office, can sum up this year’s spring runoff, which peaked on March 9 about a month early, with one four-letter word: weak. … One bright spot in the otherwise cheerless forecast is the summer monsoon season. Due to the lack of snowpack … the season is expected to arrive early and be more active than normal due to warm surface temperatures in the Gulf of California in the Baja region of northwestern Mexico.

Other snowmelt and drought news around the West: 

• Western Water Rewind: As early season heat wipes out Sierra snowpack, can a new approach help California catch more runoff?
• The Financial Times: More than half of the US in drought after near-record March temperatures
• NBC12 (Phoenix): A town in Arizona could run out of water in just three months. Here’s why.
• Mammoth Times (Mammoth Lakes, Calif.): LADWP announces annual Mono Lake level reading
• National Integrated Drought Information System (NOAA): A March meltdown: historically low snowpack melts across the West, signaling a dire water supply situation
• Maven’s Notebook: Blog: Turning flood risk into water supply — inside DWR’s San Joaquin Basin Studies