With nearly two-thirds of the United States abnormally dry or worse, the government’s spring forecast offers little hope for relief, especially in the West where a devastating megadrought has taken root and deteriorated.
Weather service and agriculture officials warned of potential water use cuts in California and the Southwest, increased wildfires, low levels in major reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell, and damage to wheat crops.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Official Spring Outlook Thursday sees a growing drought with a drier-than-normal April, May and June for much of the country, from Louisiana to Oregon. including some areas most affected by the most severe drought. And almost all of the continental United States looks warmer than usual, except for the small parts of the Pacific Northwest and Southeast Alaska, which make the drought worse.
“We predict long and widespread drought,” said Mary Erickson, deputy director of the National Weather Service. “It’s definitely something we’re looking at and very concerned about.”
NOAA expects the spring drought to affect 74 million people.
There are several factors that worsen the drought, the agency said. A La Nina cooling of parts of the central Pacific continues to provide dry weather in much of the country, while heavy monsoon rains in the summer did not occur in the southwest. Meteorologists also say the California megadrought is associated with long-term climate change.
Thursday’s national drought monitor shows that nearly 66% of the nation is in an abnormally dry state, the highest level in mid-March since 2002. And forecasters predict this will deteriorate, spreading into parts of Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado , Wyoming and South Dakota, with small islands of relief in parts of the Great Lakes and New England.
More than 44% of the nation is in moderate or worse drought, and nearly 18% are in extreme or exceptional drought – all west of the Mississippi River. Climate scientists call what is happening in the West a ‘megadrought’ that started in 1999.
“The nearly West-wide drought is already quite severe in its breadth and intensity, and unfortunately it doesn’t seem likely that there will be much relief this spring,” said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, who writes the Weather West blog. is not part of the NOAA outlook. “Winter rainfall was much below average in much of California, and summer rainfall hit record levels in the desert southwest in 2020.”
Because the Sierra Nevada snow pack is only 60 percent of normal, US Department of Agriculture meteorologist Brad Rippey said “there will be some water cuts and allocations in California and maybe other parts of the Southwest” for agriculture and other uses. It will likely hit the Golden State nut harvest.
Winter and summer wheat crops have also been hit hard by drought in the west, with 78% of the summer wheat production area in drought, Rippey said.
The dry, warm conditions of the coming months are likely to bring “an improved season of wildfires,” said Jon Gottschalck, head of NOAA’s forecasting arm.
UCLA’s Swain said the wildfires probably won’t be as bad as 2020 because so much vegetation has already been burned and drought slowed regrowth. Last year, he said, the wildfire was so massive it will be difficult to top, although this fire season will likely be above average.
Drought and heat create a vicious cycle. When it’s that dry, less energy goes from the sun to evaporating soil moisture because it’s not that wet, Swain said. This leaves more energy to heat up the air, and the heat makes the dryness worse by stimulating evaporation.
“Across the West, it is clear that climate change has essentially increased temperatures throughout the year, reducing snow cover in the mountains and increasing evaporation, significantly worsening the severity of the ongoing drought,” he said .
Over the next two weeks, parts of the central United States could experience heavy rainfall, but the question is whether that will be enough to offset the high rainfall shortages in the High Plains over the past year, said Nebraska state climatologist Martha Shulski. said.
The downside to the drought is that for the first time in three years, NOAA does not expect major spring floods, with smaller amounts of minor and moderate flooding.
About 82 million people are at risk of flooding this spring, most of the minors with no property damage. That is a decrease from 128 million people last year.
Floods are usually an expensive, short-term localized problem, while drought and wildfires affect larger areas and last longer, says NOAA climatologist Karin Gleason.
Since 1980, NOAA has followed weather disasters which caused at least $ 1 billion in damage. The 28 droughts caused nearly $ 259 billion in damage, while the 33 floods cost about $ 151 billion.
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