WA braces for another drought year as snowpack lags

You don’t have to be a scientist to see what’s happening – just glance east or west on a clear day. The rocky peaks of the Cascade and Olympic mountains tell the story of another severe drought on the horizon.

Sure, plenty of rain fell on the Pacific Northwest in December, flooding out communities across the region. But our hydrological cycle depends on much more than relatively brief windows of rainfall, and those few weeks were followed by a hot and dry spell that’s not normal for this time of year.

Right now, Washington’s snowpack sits at the third-lowest level in the last 40 years. Only 2005 and 2015 were worse by this time of year and both years saw massive and devastating droughts. Time remains for winter weather to dump inches of snow on the region’s mountains, said deputy state climatologist Karin Bumbaco, but the current trends are not bringing much optimism for the weeks ahead.

“There’s low and then there’s low,” Bumbaco said. “This is low low.”

Why we need snowpack

The snow that falls and accumulates on Washington’s mountains serves as the state’s water supply for the hot, dry summer months. Our human-made reservoirs aren’t large enough to capture and hold all the water our cities, farms and industries need. They were designed specifically for the long-standing seasonal cycles within the Pacific Northwest.

Each year, the reservoirs capture as much of the winter rain and meltwater as possible. Snowpack gradually melting into the summer months stretches out the resource well into the annual dry period.

But, increasingly, rising temperatures fueled by climate change mean that precipitation over the region is falling as rain rather than snow – or that the snowpack is melting much earlier than normal. This means the much-needed water is running through the system at a time when reservoirs are generally too full to capture much of it. So the resource effectively runs downstream and into the Pacific Ocean. Shortages inevitably follow in the months ahead, when water is needed the most.

Each of the last three years brought either a so-called snowpack drought or an early melt-off, bringing severe droughts. Last year, conditions grew so dire state officials had to cut surface water supplies to a large swath of the state, even whole cities.

Never before, since detailed climate records began, has the state suffered three such droughts in a row. And now we’re poised to enter a fourth.

Conditions in the mountains

Statewide, snowpack is down to just over half its normal levels for this time of year, Bumbaco said.

The central and south Puget Sound regions sit at about 38% and 37% of normal, respectively, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The upper Yakima River Basin sits at about 37% of normal as well.

The upper Columbia River Basin – including area across the Canadian border – has collected a normal amount of snowpack but elsewhere in the basin, those numbers start to dwindle fast.

All told, the lagging snow coverage across the state spells trouble for the Puget Sound region and Eastern Washington, which suffered greatly during the previous drought years. Should conditions hold, water supply this summer is likely to be well below normal, threatening conditions for salmon and other species and further heightening the state’s wildfire risk.

The single largest factor, Bumbaco said, has been higher-than-normal winter temperatures. This December was the hottest in Washington’s recorded history, a data set which stretches back to 1895.

“That’s a big deal,” Bumbaco said.

January was drier than normal, she added.

These warming trends are playing out around the world as climate change continues to heat the planet. Houston, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, all reached record high temperatures last month, Scientific American reported. In 2024, the world marked its warmest year on record.

A spike of a few degrees might seem negligible in traditionally hotter places but in Washington, where temperatures can hover right around the freezing point, a slim margin makes all the difference between snow and rain.

In the years ahead, Washington is likely to suffer a snowpack drought four years out of every decade, climatologists warn.

Snowpack conditions typically don’t peak until April 1, so time still remains for improvement, but Bumbaco said conditions for the weeks ahead are not looking favorable.

Washington does not just need a single miracle snowstorm, said Caroline Mellor, drought coordinator for Washington’s Department of Ecology. It needs several.

Mellor described the current conditions as extremely concerning.

Expecting another drought

Last year Washington’s mountaintops were so barren that state officials declared a drought emergency months before summer started.

Mellor said it is too early to say whether the same will happen this year, though the process is extremely likely to start soon. But conditions on the mountains now are worse than they were a year ago.

A statewide drought emergency declaration typically unlocks about $3 million for communities or businesses that are suffering. But that is not much to begin with, especially not when much of the state is poised to enter its fourth consecutive drought year .

Washington needs more funding for resiliency projects, Mellor said. Guarding against future droughts will always be more effective and less costly than reacting to them in the moment.

Last year state officials cut off surface water rights to virtually everyone within the Yakima River Basin, an unprecedented move. Anticipating similar shortages in the future, communities not only need more water-efficient upgrades but also, perhaps, entire new water sources, both of which carry higher costs than many local governments can bear.

Scott Revell, director of the Roza Irrigation District in the Yakima Valley, which covers 72,000 acres and some of Washington’s most fertile land, said he wants a tweak in state rules to allow his group to tap into more funding. Not only does it need help for farmers, but it also wants more water in the region’s streams for fish, which suffer greatly during low and hot stream flows.

Really, Roza never left “drought mode,” Revell said, even during the December rains. The group is bracing for yet another dismal year.

The district received about 40% of its typical water supply last year, Revell said. His only remaining optimism is that 2026 probably won’t be quite that bad.