Northwest drought map shows parts of SW and central WA in “severe drought”, central Oregon in “extreme drought” (Images courtesy of the U.S. Drought Monitor)
Washington is in pretty good shape when it comes our water supply, but the state still has large areas in drought conditions.
We started 2023 off pretty dry, but we’re looking at a wetter and cooler than normal March, which should help build up and retain snowpack in the Cascades. That bank of snow is about two-thirds of our water supply.
Montana’s assistant climatologist, Doctor Zach Hoylman, says snowpack is generally at or above normal. “Some mid to low elevation snowpacks are starting to fall behind slightly,” Hoylman says, “but overall, the snowpack conditions are relatively decent given the general lack of precipitation over the last 30 days.”
There are still significant swaths of southwest and central Washington where drought persists, but Brent Bower with the National Weather Service says the latest drought outlook runs from now until May, “and still expecting, really, some improvement throughout the Pacific Northwest where there is drought issues right now. That’s a positive look for that.” That “severe drought” in central and southwest Washington (the yellow areas on the map, with darker colors indicating more extreme drought conditions in other areas) is really more the low-middle end of the drought gauge and, like the entire West, is an improvement from where we’ve been. It’s Oregon still hit the hardest with the central part of the state remaining in extreme drought.
For much of the Pacific Northwest, where La Niña has meant a generally colder and wetter winter, the wildfire outlook is considered “neutral”. La Niña normally hits the Northwest harder than the Southwest, but this year, California has suffered through but benefitted from some abnormally powerful storms, which continue to build up that critical snowpack in a state perpetually plagued by extreme drought.
