West Drought Summary

Last week, California emerged from drought conditions for the first week since December 11, 2011, breaking its 376-week streak. Reservoirs continue to slowly replenish in areas of the state still experiencing abnormal dryness (D0) and no further changes were made here. However, areas of abnormal dryness and drought continued to decline in other western states this week, due to recent above-average precipitation and excellent snowpack conditions at higher elevations. Arizona and New Mexico in particular saw widespread 1-category improvements. Notably, exceptional drought (D4, the worst category depicted on the drought map) was eliminated and extreme drought (D3) broadly contracted in northern New Mexico. In Oregon, the small area of severe drought (D2) in Deschutes County was eliminated. Moderate drought in the rest of the state remains unchanged as temperatures begin to warm and soil moisture is still dry when considering conditions over the past year or so. In contrast to other parts of the West, western Washington and along the northern coast of Oregon have seen below-normal precipitation over the past few months on average and stream flows are quite low here, even record low in some places. Abnormally dry conditions were expanded across this area. Reports indicate that the dry weather has caused an increase in brush fires in Whatcom, Mason, Grays Harbor, Cowlitz, and Clark Counties in Washington.

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