Drought Archives

Extreme Conditions Now Sparking Drought Contingency Plan for First Time

Extreme drought conditions throughout the West are lowering levels in the crucial water reservoir, Lake Mead. Scars of long years of low precipitation are hard to go unnoticed at Lake Mead, and the hot, dry summers have been felt for the last several years in Arizona. 2020 was especially dry, with little monsoon. Now, the West is in uncharted territory. Lake Mead is projected to drop by several feet this year, from elevation 1,083 to about 1,068, according to officials with the Central Arizona Project. The lake is hovering around 39 percent of its full capacity.

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Officials Confident in Water Supply Management Without Drought Declaration

April 13, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /AG Net Westby Brian German

Despite a dry water year, state officials do not feel that a drought declaration is necessary. During a recent meeting of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, Director of the California Department of Water Resources, Karla Nemeth provided a water update.

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Western U.S. May Be Entering its Most Severe Drought in Modern History

April 13, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /CBS Newsby Jeff Berardelli

Extreme drought across the Western U.S. has become as reliable as a summer afternoon thunderstorm in Florida. And news headlines about drought in the West can seem a bit like a broken record, with some scientists saying the region is on the precipice of permanent drought.

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Tensions Rise in Water Battle Along Oregon-California Line

April 13, 2021/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /AP Newsby GIllian Flaccus

One of the worst droughts in memory in a massive agricultural region straddling the California-Oregon border could mean steep cuts to irrigation water for hundreds of farmers this summer to sustain endangered fish species critical to local tribes. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water allocations in the federally owned Klamath Project, is expected to announce this week how the season’s water will be divvied up after delaying the decision a month.

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Las Vegas Pushes to Become First to Ban Ornamental Grass

April 12, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /AP Newsby Sam Metz and Ken Ritter

A desert city built on a reputation for excess and indulgence wants to become a model for restraint and conservation with a first-in-the-nation policy banning grass that nobody walks on.

Las Vegas-area water officials have spent two decades trying to get people to replace thirsty greenery with desert plants, and now they’re asking the Nevada Legislature to outlaw roughly 40% of the turf that’s left.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority estimates there are almost 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) of “nonfunctional turf” in the metro area — grass that no one ever walks on or otherwise uses in street medians, housing developments and office parks.

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Western U.S. May Be Entering its Most Severe Drought in Modern History

April 12, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /CBS Newsby Jeff Berardelli

Extreme drought across the Western U.S. has become as reliable as a summer afternoon thunderstorm in Florida. And news headlines about drought in the West can seem a bit like a broken record, with some scientists saying the region is on the precipice of permanent drought. That’s because in 2000, the Western U.S. entered the beginning of what scientists call a megadrought — the second worst in 1,200 years — triggered by a combination of a natural dry cycle and human-caused climate change.

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In the West, Signs in the Snow Warn That a 20-Year Drought Will Persist and Intensify

April 9, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Inside Climate Newsby Bob Berwyn and Judy Fahys

Lack of monsoon rainfall last summer and spotty snowfall this winter combined to worsen the Western drought dramatically in the past year, and spring snowmelt won’t bring much relief. Critical April 1 measurements of snow accumulations from mountain ranges across the region show that most streams and rivers will once again flow well below average levels this year, stressing ecosystems and farms and depleting key reservoirs that are already at dangerously low levels.

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Drought Hitting Home in California, Arizona

April 9, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Western FarmPressby Todd Fitchette

As drought deepens in the West and the water used by farms and people alike dwindles, farmers in Arizona and California are bracing for cutbacks in the two major federal systems that supply irrigation and drinking water to millions of people.

Water storage is shrinking with no snowpack to replenish reservoirs managed by the Bureau of Reclamation in California and Arizona. Shasta Lake in northern California is about half full while lakes Mead and Powell, the two giant reservoirs designed to contain more than 50-million-acre feet of water behind Hoover and Glen Canyon dams, respectively, are precariously low with under 20-million-acre feet of total storage combined.

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La Niña is Fading But California, Gulf Coast Still Face Risks

April 9, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /Bloomberg Greenby Brian K Sullivan

La Niña, the cooling of the equatorial Pacific that shifts weather patterns the world over, is fading away. But California may still be prone to dryness, and the U.S. Gulf Coast faces the risk of another busy hurricane season. Water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean will likely return to normal in the next few months, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said in a report Thursday.

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