Recent moisture has helped to move the Longmont area out of drought conditions.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, all of Boulder County and several neighboring counties are no longer considered to be in drought. The area is classified as “abnormally dry” as of March 22, the most recent map available.
The U.S. Drought Monitor has four levels of drought from least to worst severity: moderate, severe, extreme and exceptional. As of the most recent mapping, 17% of Colorado was considered abnormally dry but not in drought conditions, with nearly half the state seeing moderate drought.
According to the weekly summary from the U.S. Drought Monitor for the high plains region, without continued moisture drought could creep back in quickly due to the previous months of dry conditions.
The most recent mapping is an improvement from the previous week, March 15, when the east part of Boulder County and many counties to the south were also in moderate drought. Roughly half the state was in severe drought rather than moderate as of March 15.
Only a few areas in southern Colorado, equal to 7%, are currently in extreme or exceptional drought, according to the most recent map. This is a slight decrease from the previous week.
Moisture over the last three months has helped to improve conditions in Longmont and much of the state. On Dec. 21, the entire state was seeing some level of drought, and the Longmont area was considered to be in extreme drought.
Longmont’s conditions are similar to that of a year ago, though nearly all of Colorado was seeing some level of drought then. Much of the Western Slope was in extreme or exceptional drought at the end of March 2021, which is not the case this year.
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