Cheek numbing, eye watering winds whip across the plains of the Laramie Basin, Wyoming. The ground is yellow brown with patches of recalcitrant snow. Sheep Mountain is losing its winter coat. All normal affairs for March.  The March edition of the Wyoming Basin Outlook Report also reports, based on February accumulations, that Snow Water Equivalent is at 99% of average.  
The SWE is a measure of the snow pack that feeds the streams, rivers and reservoirs that Wyoming, Nebraska and other states depend upon for water.  Current averages are compared to the average SWE for 1971-2000. In recent years, snow pack in this region has been anything but normal.
The Outlook Reports are issued January to June.  Since March 2000, only five of 46 months have been above normal.  While many of the winter months have been near normal, June's snow pack is far below average.  Even in 2006, the wettest year of the last eight years, June snow pack was only 37% of the average.  
In an e-mail interview with Wikinews, Lee Hackleman, Water Supply Specialist, said 
—Lee Hackleman, Natural Resources Conservation Service.In a phone interview with Wikinews, Myra Wilensky of the National Wildlife Federation in nearby Colorado, also commented on changing snow patterns.
Can’t count on getting estimated amount of snow anymore.  March and November have historically been our snowiest months, but this year it’s been a fairly dry in March and November. Winter is shorter now.
—Myra Wilensky, National Wildlife Foundation.This is part of a general increase in temperature in the region.  An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cited by the National Wildlife Federation estimates that the temperature will rise almost 7 degrees (F) by 2100.  
—National Wildlife Federation.The NWF's main concern is the fate of the wildlife in the region, particularly how the impact of pine bark beetles.  Warmer winters have led to mass infestations in  Western lodge pole pine forests and The New York Times reports that they are now moving on to white bark pines in Yellowstone particularly impacting grizzly bears there. In turn, the grizzlies are shifting to feeding on Canadian thistle, an invasive species that might be choking out native plants.
Changing weather patterns have also affected large migratory animals.
—Myra Wilensky, National Wildlife Foundation.Water for people has also become a major issue in the region. 
—Lee Hackleman, Natural Resources Conservation Service.Kansas has long fought Wyoming over water rights issues.  And Montana is currently suing Wyoming, claiming that the Yellowstone River Compact signed in 1950 gives rights to both surface and ground water, while Wyoming disagrees.  On February 18, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the lawsuit. 
But Montana says Wyoming is storing more water in reservoirs than the compact permits and allowing excessive pumping of groundwater reserves that feed into the two rivers.  
Those "groundwater" reserves are tapped by some Wyoming farmers to irrigate their fields. Energy companies discharge large volumes of groundwater during production of coal-bed methane, a type of natural gas prevalent in northern Wyoming.
—U.S. Water News Online, March 2008.Authorities do not see this fight over increasingly limited water resources going away anytime soon.
—Lee Hackleman, Natural Resources Conservation Service.
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Climate change impacts Wyoming