Kirk Siegler

Geopolitics is just the latest stress for farmers like Justin Sherlock, who grows soybeans and corn in North Dakota.

He's going into his fourth straight spring planting season in the red.

The only way most farmers are still able to get a loan from the bank is because land prices are still high, and that's collateral.

High diesel and fertilizer costs due to President Trump's Iran war capping what's been a slow burn in the heartland since COVID.

And then tariffs with soybean prices staying flat and inflation rising.

Sherlock says something's got to give soon.

Kirk Sigler, NPR News, Fargo, North Dakota.

March is typically the snowiest month of the year in Colorado, but this year the state is reporting its lowest snow totals on record.

The Cascades in Oregon and Washington are in a similar dire state.

According to new data from NOAA's Drought Monitor, in California, warm temperatures have already caused rapid snowmelt and an early spring runoff.

Every single river basin in the West has experienced its warmest or second warmest winter on record.

Snow is the West's primary water storage, and tens of millions of people rely on it for drinking water, food, and power.

The Federal Bureau of Reclamation now predicts the water level in Lake Powell may drop so low that the Glen Canyon Dam will cease producing power by December.

Kirk Sigler, NPR News, Bozeman, Montana.

Forty million people and countless farms depend on the Colorado River, and the snowpack at its headwaters right now is at 60 percent of average.

And that average factors in the last couple decades of mega-drought.

The West's main water storage supply is its snowpack, and Lindsay DeFreides with the Colorado River Water District says the deficit is huge.

Bad news for water managers and the West's multi-billion dollar ski industry.

Business at resorts from Colorado to historically dry Utah is way down over this time last year.

Kirk Sigler, NPR News, Denver.