Pacific Northwest drought alert

Washington placed every watershed under a drought declaration on April 8 after mountain snowpack fell to about half of normal. (ecology.wa.gov) The Washington State Department of Ecology said the state entered April with near-record low snowpack and multiple years of precipitation deficits. Ecology called it the state’s fourth consecutive drought declaration, a record under Washington’s current drought framework, which dates to 1989. (ecology.wa.gov) Snowpack works like a mountain reservoir: winter snow stores water, then releases it slowly into rivers and reservoirs during summer. The United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service said Washington’s statewide snow water equivalent was 52% of normal on April 1, after an exceptionally warm winter. (nrcs.usda.gov) That shortfall is already extreme in parts of the state. The Natural Resources Conservation Service said 14 Washington snow-monitoring sites were at record-low April 1 snow water equivalent, and 9 more were at their second-lowest level on record. (nrcs.usda.gov) Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller said the declaration was aimed at protecting water supplies for farms, fish, and communities before summer demand peaks. Under state law, a drought declaration also opens access to emergency response grants and loans for local impacts. (ecology.wa.gov) State officials tied the warning to wildfire risk as well as water shortages. Ecology said low streamflows and dry fuels are more likely when snow melts out early or never builds up, and the University of Washington’s Climate Office said April 1 snowpack was about 53% of median statewide. (ecology.wa.gov) (climate.uw.edu) The declaration does not mean every town will run out of water, and some reservoir systems entered spring in better shape than the snowpack. But Ecology said watersheds across Washington are vulnerable because this winter’s snow deficit followed several dry years, leaving less buffer for a hot summer. (ecology.wa.gov) Public radio outlet Oregon Public Broadcasting reported the state has now declared drought emergencies four years in a row, and Northwest Public Broadcasting reported state climatologists expect “snow droughts” like this to become more common as winters warm. (opb.org) (nwpb.org) Washington’s water picture can still shift with late-spring rain, but the main snow-accumulation season has already passed. State agencies are telling residents, utilities, and irrigators to plan now for a drier summer than normal. (nrcs.usda.gov) (ecology.wa.gov)