Southwestern Megadrought

One-line: The emerging megadrought gripping southwestern North America since ~2000 — the driest 22-year period (2000–2021) in at least 1,200 years — driven partly by human-caused warming, and expressing not just as dry years but as permanent aridification.

A durable climate-baseline concept surfaced in Water in Catron County. The single largest shift in The Luna Landing region’s operating assumptions: the perennial mountain streams that made 1880s settlement possible are becoming less reliably perennial.

How sources describe it

• Driest in 1,200+ years. Tree-ring soil-moisture reconstructions back to AD 800 show 2000–2021 was the driest 22-year period in at least 1,200 years, exceeded only by a late-1500s megadrought (source: Water in Catron County).
• Human fingerprint. 2000–2021 precipitation ran ~8.3% below the 1950–1999 norm and temperatures ~0.91°C warmer; ~40% of the soil-moisture deficit is attributable to human-caused warming (source: Water in Catron County).
• Aridification, not just drought. A warmer atmosphere pulls more moisture from soil, snowpack, and streams even when precipitation is only modestly below average; warmer winters mean less snowpack and earlier melt, shortening the high country’s slow-release season (source: Water in Catron County).
• Fire–water nexus. The megadrought supercharges the fire regime (e.g. the 2012 Whitewater-Baldy Fire, the 2026 Sacaton Fire), and post-fire flash floods degrade watershed water supply for years — arguably the single largest emerging threat to regional water security (source: Water in Catron County).

Related concepts

• Water in Catron County · Catron County · Gila · Prior Appropriation

Where it shows up

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