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A record snow drought with unprecedented heat is hitting most of the American West, depleting future water supplies, making it more vulnerable to wildfires and hurting winter tourism and recreation.

Scientists say snow cover and snow depth are both at the lowest levels they’ve seen in decades, while at least 67 Western weather stations have measured their warmest December through early February on record. Normal snow cover this time of year should be about 460,000 square miles — about the size of California, Utah, Idaho and Montana — but this year it’s only California-sized, about 155,000 square miles, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

As water agencies across California grapple with the increasingly extreme effects of climate change, they’re also facing another problem: the incoming “silver tsunami.”

That’s the phrase coined by the industry to illustrate the fact that much of the workforce — largely baby boomers — that keeps our water flowing and safe are getting ready to retire. Nationwide, about a third of the nation’s water workforce is eligible for retirement within the next decade, “the majority being workers with trade jobs in mission critical positions,” the Environmental Protection Agency wrote in a 2024 report.

With the leaders of seven states deadlocked over the Colorado River’s deepening crisis, negotiations increasingly seem likely to fail — which could lead the federal government to impose unilateral cuts and spark lawsuits that would bring a complex court battle.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has urged negotiators for the states to reach a deal by Feb. 14, but substantial disagreements remain. A failure to reach a consensus could result in cuts in water deliveries to California by as much as a third, and by perhaps twice that for Arizona and Nevada — much larger reductions than the states have offered as part of the negotiations.

For many, heavy rains are a headache. Storms send pedestrians scurrying under umbrellas, trying to stay dry, and can cause major traffic jams for motorists. But for California, recent heavy rains have been more than welcome.

The Mercury News reported that large atmospheric storms have filled the state’s reservoirs to historic levels. Hundreds of billions of gallons of water have refilled the reservoirs, easing concerns about future shortfalls for the time being.