There was too much snow between Santa Fe and Albuquerque for state officials to make it down this morning for a news conference on current snow pack and water supply conditions in the state. But don't let today's storm fool you.

Our snow pack and the resulting runoff forecasts have been in steady decline since Jan. 1, and today's storm won't fix things. The latest drought monitor, out yesterday, shifts large parts of eastern and southern New Mexico from merely dry to modest drought conditions (the brown on the map to the right - click through to see it full sized). The drought conditions you see is dryland drought, based on the precipitation that falls in those areas and wets the soil. It mostly affects farmers. The other thing to watch is snow pack, which melts over the summer to provide water in rivers. That's mostly also for farmers, but also for cities now that Albuquerque is drinking river water.

Approaching April 1, we're closing in on do-or-die time for snow pack creation, and things look relatively solid. We had monster snows in the mountains in December, so 2009 started from a high level. It's been mostly dry since, but we got enough early snow that the preliminary river forecasts are still for average to above-average flows.

update: "You know," a smart reader pointed out, "they could have taken the Rail Runner to that news conference."