WEATHER: Drought Watch: 'Gloomy to Grim'

The arid fields and shrunken water catches that Jimmy Carter saw in California's San Joaquin Valley last week are a common, heartbreaking sight throughout the American West this spring. From the Pacific to the eastern slopes of the Colorado Rockies, the winter's near-record drought meant dry riverbeds and a snowpack that in some areas was less than a fifth of the usual level. In a region where more than three-quarters of the fresh water normally comes from the spring runoff of the snowpack, the water-supply outlook for the summer months is ominous....

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