Click the link to read the assessment on the Western Water Assessment website:

May 13, 2026 – CO, UT, WY

The region generally experienced drier conditions east of the Continental Divide, and wetter conditions west of the Divide in April. Temperatures were near to above average for most of the region. As of May 1, statewide percent median SWE was 18% in Colorado, 22% in Utah, and 44% in Wyoming. Regional streamflow volume forecasts are below to much below average, with 13% of average inflow forecasted for Lake Powell. Drought conditions cover 99% of the region as of April 28. ENSO forecasts predict an 88% chance of El Niño conditions developing during May-July and continuing through the end of 2026.

Regional precipitation was variable in April, ranging from below average conditions in eastern Colorado and much of Wyoming to above average conditions in western Colorado, much of Utah, and south-central Wyoming. Much below average April precipitation occurred in eastern Colorado, northwestern Utah, and eastern and western Wyoming, with large pockets of less than 25% of average conditions in southeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming into northeastern Colorado. Record-dry conditions occurred in southeastern and northeastern Colorado, and southeastern Wyoming. Record-wet conditions occurred in Carbon County, Utah.

Regional temperatures were near to above average in April. Much of Colorado, Utah, and southern and western Wyoming experienced 2-4°F above average temperatures, with pockets of 4-6°F above average temperatures along the northern and southern Front Range of Colorado, and in eastern Colorado. A few pockets of 2 to 4°F below average temperatures occurred in northwestern and southeastern Wyoming, and one pocket in southwestern Utah, and one area of 4 to 6°F below average temperatures occurred in Platte County, Wyoming.

Below to much below normal snow-water equivalent (SWE) continues throughout the region as of May 1. All river basins in Colorado, Utah, and eastern Wyoming observed 50% or less of normal SWE. The only river basins with above 50% of normal SWE were in western Wyoming, including the Yellowstone (88%), Shoshone (67%), Big Horn (60%), Madison (56%), Tongue (54%), and Upper Green (53%) River Basins. The Dolores River Basin in Colorado and the Dirty Devil and Escalante River Basins in Utah have melted out as of May 1. As of May 1, statewide percent median SWE was 18% in Colorado, 22% in Utah, and 44% in Wyoming. Peak SWE was observed on March 12 for Colorado (51% of median peak), March 9 for Utah (52% of median peak), and March 17 for Wyoming (69% of median peak)

Seasonal streamflow volume forecasts for all river basins in the region are below to much below average. In Colorado, seasonal streamflow volume forecasts suggest 20-40% of average runoff for all major river basins. In Utah, seasonal streamflow volume forecasts suggest 10-40% of average runoff for all major river basins. In Wyoming, streamflow forecasts were more variable, with a near average forecast for the Shoshone River Basin (91%), below average forecasts for the Yellowstone (81%), Snake (66%), Tongue (60%), Cheyenne (56%), and Powder (55%) River Basins, and forecasts below 50% of average in the remaining major river basins. Much below average inflow is forecasted for many regional reservoirs, including Flaming Gorge (39%), Boysen (37%), Deer Creek (36%), Navajo (27%), McPhee (27%), Blue Mesa (27%), Guernsey (23%), and Lake Powell (13%).

Regional drought coverage increased during April and covered 99% of the region by April 28 (drought covered 93% of the region on March 31). Drought conditions deteriorated in Colorado, where moderate (D1) drought now covers the entire state, severe (D2) drought coverage increased by 25%, and extreme (D3) drought coverage increased by 10%. In Utah, D1 drought still covers the entire state, and D2 drought coverage increased by 10%. In Wyoming, D1 drought coverage increased by 6%, D2 drought coverage increased by 17%, and D3 drought coverage increased by 5%. Exceptional (D4) drought coverage decreased by 4% in the West Slope of Colorado.

As of mid-April, the equatorial Pacific Ocean was in an ENSO-neutral state but is rapidly transitioning toward El Niño. ENSO forecasts predict an 88% chance of El Niño conditions developing during May-July and continuing through the end of 2026. NOAA monthly forecasts for May suggest an increased probability for below average precipitation in Wyoming and above average temperatures for the entire region, particularly in northern Utah and western Wyoming. NOAA seasonal forecasts for May-July suggest an increased probability for below average precipitation in Wyoming, northern Utah, and northern Colorado, and above average precipitation in southern Colorado. Above average temperatures are forecasted throughout the region, particularly in Utah and southwestern Wyoming.

Significant weather event: Hammer Fire. The Hammer Fire started on April 22 in El Paso County near the community of Hanover, Colorado, southeast of Colorado Springs. There were extreme fire conditions on April 22, with strong winds and very low humidity, causing the fire to grow quickly. Mandatory evacuations were issued for nearby residents, and schools were closed in Hanover School District 28. The fire started in the afternoon and rapidly grew from 200 acres to over 4,000 acres within hours due to the strong wind gusts that day. The wildfire was contained on April 24 and burned approximately 4,958 acres, making it the second-largest wildfire in Colorado in 2026, only behind the 24 Fire that burned 7,404 acres from March 18-April 2 southwest of Colorado Springs.

Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Newsline website (Kyle Manley):

May 14, 2026

Research shows there’s an overlooked cost to recreation

This commentary was originally published by The Commentary.

Colorado’s two largest fires on record, the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires, burned hundreds of thousands of acres across some of the state’s most visited landscapes in 2020.

The fires scorched trails, campgrounds and beloved ecosystems in and around Rocky Mountain National Park and the Arapahoe and Roosevelt national forests.

More than five years later, the scars remain stark: blackened hillsides, closed trails and bare slopes where forests once stood. According to our recent research, which has not yet been peer reviewed, the fires caused significant and lasting declines in visitation at the burned sites.

Even after the 2020 fires, Rocky Mountain National Park attracted 4.2 million visitors in 2024, generating $862 million in economic output in local gateway communities such as Estes Park and Grand Lake. Rocky Mountain National Park is a significant contributor to the nearly 1 billion annual visits and $700 billion in spending that public lands generate nationwide as outdoor recreation continues to grow. It also supports a variety of important social values beyond the economy, including mental health and well-being, cultural and spiritual connection, and the sense of place that binds people to landscapes.

But these landscapes are changing fast. Wildfires are affecting our public lands at an accelerating scale and increasing intensity. Yet how fire affects recreation has remained poorly understood.

That’s the question I set out to answer with an interdisciplinary team of researchers. As a scientist who studies the benefits nature provides to people and how those benefits are affected by climate change, I wanted to know whether fire is eroding one of the most recognized and valued benefits of nature: recreation.

Tracking visitation across burned landscapes

Our first challenge was gathering data about visits to these outdoor areas.

A handful of monitored public lands track visitor counts, but those counts can tell us only so much about how fires affect recreation. Wildfires often cross boundaries, for example from a national park into a national forest, and span dispersed remote areas where no one is monitoring visitation.

Alternatively, every time someone logs a hike on AllTrails, posts a nature photo to Flickr, reports a bird sighting on eBird or simply carries a phone into the backcountry, they leave a precise digital trace of where and when they spent time outdoors. We trained a visitation model on the on-site counts that do exist at monitored sites, using millions of these digital traces, alongside other recreation drivers such as weather, land cover and site characteristics, as predictors.

Across Colorado and California, this approach let us track visitation in burned areas across hundreds of wildfires and prescribed burns for years before and after each fire, even in the remote, unmonitored landscapes where most fires burn. But changes in visitation can have many causes, including weather, broader recreation trends, even pandemic effects. So we statistically paired each burned site with a very similar unburned site elsewhere on public lands. This let us measure not just what happened after each fire, but also what we could expect would have happened without it. The gap between those two is how fire actually affected recreation.

We found that it’s not simply fire itself that drives people away, but a confluence of the type and severity of a fire, the ecosystem that burned and the social values connected to the fire-impacted landscape.

Wildfires that empty trails – and ones that don’t

In Colorado, the average wildfire reduced visitation to burned sites by 8% in the year of the fire. Those declines never recovered to prefire levels for the five-year postfire period we tracked.

As fires grew larger and burned more intensely, recreational losses sharpened. Visitation dropped 15% to 20% at sites burned at higher severity. These declines lasted years. Take the Cameron Peak Fire, for example. The Arapaho and Roosevelt national forests typically see about 8 million visits a year. Our model estimates that the area burned in the Cameron Peak Fire drew nearly 500,000 visits annually before the fire. Applying our 15% to 20% average declines estimated for moderate- to high-severity wildfires, that translates to roughly 70,000 to 100,000 fewer trips annually, losses our analysis finds persist for years.

But these postfire recreational losses were largely concentrated in forested landscapes. Wildfires that occurred in grasslands, such as the southeastern Colorado Cherry Canyon Fire in 2020, by contrast, seemed to barely register with visitors. Visitation at these grassland-dominated burn sites showed essentially no change. This pattern reveals something important. People’s recreational responses to fire are not just about the physical damage and accessibility impacts. They reflect the particular relationships people hold with different landscapes. Grasses recover within a season or two, and the wide-open vistas that draw people to those landscapes remain intact, even after a fire.

Forests are different. The towering canopies, shaded trails and old-growth character that people value may take decades or centuries to return, if they return at all in a changing climate.

In California, our analysis reveals how these human-nature relationships also vary across regions, with much sharper and more persistent losses than in Colorado. Californian wildfires reduced visitation by 18% in the first year on average, and high-severity forest fires produced losses of 33% that showed no recovery five years after the fire. California’s fires tend to be significantly larger, more severe and more concentrated in forested landscapes.

However, small fires in California actually increased visitation by 8%. This suggests that after years of megafires, a small burn may barely register. Californians have grown accustomed to a fire-shaped landscape, and a modest fire scar may not be enough to keep them off the trails.

Prescribed fire tells a different story

As wildfire intensifies, land managers are responding by expanding prescribed fire programs. They are intentionally setting lower-intensity fires to clear out the dead trees, dry brush and accumulated debris built up from over a century of fire suppression that can feed catastrophic wildfires.

Current prescribed fire planning tends to focus on reducing fire suppression costs and protecting properties, as well as managing ecosystems by reducing fuel loads and improving wildlife habitat. But managers are scaling up these programs without knowing how prescribed fire affects the recreationists who visit these landscapes, a gap our analysis sets out to fill.

In Colorado, we found that on average prescribed fire actually increased visitation by about 8% in the year of the fire. This increase may reflect improved trail conditions, enhanced wildlife habitat that attracts birders and hunters, or positive public perceptions of proactive management.

In California, prescribed fire on average decreased visitation by about 3%. Crucially, in stark contrast to wildfire, impacts were short-lived, with visitation returning to prefire levels within three years in both states.

Beyond their direct effects on recreation, prescribed burns also reduce the likelihood of future extreme fires – the very fires that drive the largest and longest-lasting recreation declines.

Why this matters beyond fire

Some of the Colorado communities that are most dependent economically on recreation experienced the steepest visitation declines in the period we studied. These are towns such as Grand Lake, Durango and Gunnison, where shops, hotels, restaurants and seasonal workers rely on a steady flow of visitors, and where sales tax from those visitors funds the infrastructure and daily life of the community. Persistent declines in visitation threaten the long-term viability of these places.

The implications run beyond fire. Calls to consider less tangible benefits of nature, such as recreation, into climate impact assessments, extreme events research and conservation planning have grown recently. Turning those calls into action requires evidence that can help land managers make decisions. Our work provides some of that evidence for fire and a framework that can be used for other disturbances, such as floods and droughts. Without accounting for these less tangible values of nature, increasingly extreme climate impacts will keep eroding the experiences, livelihoods and connections that sustain the well-being of millions of Americans.

Read more of our stories about Colorado.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Monitor website.

Click the link to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

This Week’s Drought Summary

This week was defined by a significant precipitation divide, highlighted by a major deluge across parts of the South and Gulf Coast. Persistent storm systems funneled heavy moisture into Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, where total rainfall reached 4 to 6 inches—and in some coastal pockets even higher—representing departures of 3 to 5 inches above seasonal norms. While an active frontal corridor brought a secondary band of moderate rain (1 to 3 inches) from Texas through the Ohio Valley and into the Northeast, the Western U.S. remained exceptionally dry, with most areas west of the Rockies receiving less than 0.1 inch of rain. This lack of moisture, paired with blustery winds, triggered extreme fire danger across the Upper Mississippi Valley, though the period concluded with a pattern shift as a significant Pacific low-pressure system finally moved onshore to deliver moisture to the Northwest.

Temperature patterns showed an equally sharp geographical split, with unseasonable warmth gripping the West and parts of the South while a late-spring chill lingered over the North. In the Southwest and South Texas, summer-like heat took a firm hold as Rio Grande Village, Texas, hit a national high of 105°F and Death Valley consistently reached the triple digits; overall, the Western U.S. averaged 5 to 15°F above normal. Conversely, a significant cool-down settled over the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest, where the Dakotas and Minnesota experienced temperatures 5 to 15°F below seasonal averages. This thermal contrast was further sharpened by winter-like conditions in high-elevation regions of the West, where stations in Utah recorded lows as cold as 10°F, even as record-challenging warmth began to expand across the Pacific Northwest and the Southern Border states…

High Plains

Anomalous warmth dominated most of the High Plains this week, while precipitation was defined by a significant east-west gradient. The eastern portions of the region, remained under a persistent late-spring chill with average temperatures falling 4°F to 10°F below seasonal norms. This area was also exceptionally dry, receiving less than 0.05 inches of rain, which resulted in precipitation deficits of 0.6 to 1.2 inches. Persistent dryness resulted in the expansion of exceptional (D4) drought in Nebraska, while and moderate (D1) to extreme (D3) drought were expanded in northeastern Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. In contrast, the western High Plains across Wyoming, much of Colorado, and western portions of South Dakota and Nebraska, experienced unseasonable warmth, with departures ranging from 2°F to 6°F above normal. This warmth was accompanied by an active moisture corridor through the southern High Plains; while northern and eastern reaches were dry, portions of Colorado and adjacent areas of Wyoming and Kansas recorded 0.7 to 1.6 inches of precipitation, ranging from 0.3 to 0.9 inches above normal. This above-normal precipitation resulted in the removal of exceptional (D4) and reduction of extreme (D3) drought in Wyoming, and improvements to severe (D2) to exceptional (D4) drought in Colorado and severe (D2) to extreme (D3) drought in western Kansas…

West

The West was characterized by unseasonable warmth and widespread dryness across the Pacific Coast and Great Basin, contrasted by cooler, more active conditions in the Rocky Mountains this week. The eastern portion of the region—specifically eastern portions of Montana, Utah, and New Mexico—remained notably cooler, with departures ranging 3°F to 6°F below normal. However, most of the region, particularly in parts of Oregon, California, and Nevada, experienced significant temperature departures of 6°F to over 12°F above normal, with actual average readings in the Desert Southwest reaching the 80s and 90s. This heat was paired with minimal moisture, as coastal and interior basin states recorded less than 0.1 inches of rain, resulting in precipitation deficits of 0.6 to 1.5 inches below seasonal averages. Exceptional (D4) drought was expanded in southern Idaho, while extreme (D3) drought was introduced in Oregon and expanded in Montana, Idaho, and Nevada this week. Severe (D2) and moderate (D1) drought were expanded in Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. Severe (D2) drought was also introduced in northern Washington and expanded in northern Nevada. Conditions deteriorated over parts of southwest Washington and northwest Oregon resulting in the expansion of abnormal dryness (D0) in these areas. Conversely, localized moisture resulted in the moderate (D1) to severe (D2) drought and abnormal dryness (D0) improvements in southern Arizona, while improvements to moderate (D1) drought occurred in parts of western Nevada…

South

The Southern region experienced a stark contrast in both precipitation and temperature during the week, defined by torrential Gulf Coast rains and a significant late-spring chill across the interior. Precipitation was most intense across the central Gulf Coast, particularly in Louisiana and southern Mississippi, where weekly totals reached 7 to over 9 inches. These amounts represent exceptional departures of 6 to 7.5 inches above normal. Moderate (D1) to Exceptional (D4) drought was reduced in southern and eastern portions of Texas, and in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and southern Tennessee. Abnormal dryness (D0) was improved in parts of Texas and southern Louisiana. Conversely, drier conditions prevailed in West Texas, Oklahoma, and much of the Tennessee Valley, where precipitation was generally 1.5 to 3 inches below average. Exceptional (D4) was introduced in southwest Oklahoma and from the Texas Panhandle into northwest Oklahoma, and expanded in parts of Arkansas and northern Mississippi. Extreme (D3) expanded in northern portions of Texas and western Oklahoma. Heat persisted in southern Texas, where average temperatures reached the 80s and 90s, representing departures of up to 5°F above normal. However, a powerful cold anomaly gripped the northern, eastern, and central portions of the region. In these areas, temperatures were broadly 5 to 10°F below normal for the week…

Looking Ahead

Over the next five days (May 12–16, 2026), weather patterns across the United States will feature a stark contrast between record-challenging heat in the West and unsettled, cooler conditions in the East. A building atmospheric ridge will maintain well-above-normal temperatures across the western U.S., with several high-temperature records likely to be tied or broken as this warmth spreads into the central Plains by mid-week. Conversely, the eastern half of the country can expect near to below-normal temperatures as a series of frontal systems bring frequent rounds of showers and thunderstorms from the Midwest to the Atlantic Coast. Meanwhile, an incoming Pacific low-pressure system is forecast to deliver light to moderate precipitation to the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, while gusty winds may accompany the passage of these weather systems across the Rockies and Great Plains.

Further out, the Climate Prediction Center’s 6–10 day outlook (valid May 17–21, 2026) favors above-normal temperatures across Hawaii and most of the contiguous U.S., with the most intense heat probability concentrated in the Southeast. Areas along the northern border and southern parts of Alaska are favored to be cooler-than-average during this period. Probabilities for above-normal precipitation are increased across Hawaii and the vast majority of the lower 48 states and Alaska. In contrast, below-normal precipitation is favored across the West Coast, particularly over northern California, and in parts of the East Coast, from the Mid-Atlantic to the Carolinas.

Click the link to read the summary on the Colorado State University website. Here’s an excerpt:

After a record-shattering March, April 2026 seemed at least a little more normal in Colorado. April was actually cooler than March, which doesn’t happen very often. But it was yet another warmer-than-average month, and it was very dry in eastern Colorado. Flash drought set in across the eastern Plains. The mountains had near- to above-average precipitation in April, which slowed the melting of mountain snowpack. But statewide snowpack was still at record-low levels as of the end of April. Water Year 2026 thus far remains the warmest on record by a large margin.

Click the link to access the report on the NRCS website. (Click through to check out the exceedance forecasts in your favorite watershed.)

Click the link to read the release on the NRCS website:

May 8, 2026

Colorado’s 2026 water year this far has been defined by records across nearly every metric: an anomalously early snowpack peak, rapid melt driven by record March temperatures, snowpack that tracked at-or-near the lowest values in the SNOTEL period of record from January through May 1, and near-record early season precipitation in the San Juan Mountains. Runoff has arrived weeks ahead of the historical median across river systems and recession is largely underway.

May through July runoff forecasts remain low across Colorado at 24 percent of median at the 50 percent exceedance forecast. Western slope forecasts range from 22 to 24 percent of median and eastern basins remain slightly higher at 37 percent in the South Platte basin and 33 percent in the Arkansas basin (Figure 1). The Upper Rio Grande basin is forecast 30 percent of median at the 50 percent exceedance. Forty-eight of 86 forecast points rank as either the lowest or second lowest in their period of record. All 86 forecast points rank at or below the 13th percentile with a median percentile rank of 2. Several Colorado Headwaters forecast points rank lowest on record, including Colorado River near Cameo forecast a departure of 1.49 million acre-feet (MAF), rank 1 of 73 years.

Statewide snowpack is 20 percent of median as of May 1, effectively unchanged from April 1 despite near-normal April precipitation. Snowpack peaked in early March in southern basins and mid-March in northern basins, three to five weeks ahead of historical median peak timing at half of median peak snow water equivalent (SWE). Early May storms have boosted statewide snowpack to 25 percent of median as of May 7, with sites in the Front Range east of the Continental Divide being particularly favored and receiving near 2 inches of SWE.

Many observed streamflow hydrographs are already entering recession unusually early. On the Yampa River near Maybell, seasonal peak flow occurred at the end of March and ranks as the earliest peak date and lowest peak in the 110-year period of record. Similar early and shortened hydrographs have developed in the Upper Colorado Region and in southern basins as accelerated spring melt caused much of the seasonal runoff to occur earlier than normal.

Statewide reservoir storage is 85 percent of median, while forecast inflows into Colorado’s largest reservoirs are well below median. Forecast inflows for the May-July 50 percent exceedance outlook range from 17 percent of median at McPhee Reservoir and 18 percent Blue Mesa to 36 percent at Lake Granby and Pueblo Reservoir.

April storms briefly stabilized snowpack conditions but did not offset the impacts of the record warm and dry winter and the late March heat wave that accelerated snowmelt and shifted runoff weeks ahead of normal. Future weather remains a source of uncertainty and the current 8-14 day outlooks favor above-normal precipitation alongside above-normal temperatures statewide.

Colorado’s Snowpack and Reservoir Storage as of May 1, 2026

For more details see the May 1, 2026 Water Supply Outlook Report.

Click the link to read the article on the High Country News website (Christine Peterson):

April 23, 2026

In March, a month traditionally known for heavy mountain snows and dreary lower-elevation weather, a heat wave settled across the West, shattering temperature records from Tucson, Arizona, to Casper, Wyoming.

The heat wave’s intensity and early arrival shocked many climate scientists. “It is exceptionally difficult for the Earth system to produce temperatures this warm so early in the season,” wrote Daniel Swain, a climatologist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources who runs the Weather West blog.

Yet not only did Western locations set new March highs; many exceeded temperature records for May. And those high temperatures kept hanging on, said Zachary Labe, a climate scientist at the nonprofit science center Climate Central, for nearly two weeks.

While heat waves are a natural phenomenon, this was the earliest and most widespread one ever recorded in the Southwest. And it was caused by climate change, which is making intense heat waves much more likely. Researchers say this means understanding their fallout is even more important.

Scientists are just now beginning to understand the ramifications of a devastating 2021 heat wave, when a massive heat dome brought 120-degree temperatures to the Pacific Northwest, causing widespread ecological damage. Tens of thousands of trees died. Baby birds that could not yet fly plummeted to the ground as they tried to escape the heat. Salmon and trout suffocated in small streams. Millions — perhaps even billions — of mussels and barnacles cooked.

This year’s heat wave may not have had the same immediate ecological impacts, but it comes on the heels of an already record-breaking hot, dry winter. Researchers say 2021 holds lessons about what lies ahead for both vulnerable and resilient species. Ecosystems, they warn, are likely to permanently change as some species simply can’t handle the heat.

FULLY UNDERSTANDING the impact that events like heat waves have on long-lived tree species takes time. Research is now trickling out from places like Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, and it’s not good.

The 2021 heat wave either killed or otherwise harmed more than three-quarters of species surveyed, including by limiting their reproductive success, according to Julia Baum, a professor at University of Victoria who co-wrote a recent paper on the long-term impacts. The hardest hit, perhaps unsurprisingly, were those unable to move to seek shade or cooler temperatures. Marine species like acorn barnacles and green rope seaweed fared the worst, as did kelp, surfgrass and rockweed.

“The rocky shorelines they live on heated up to (122 Fahrenheit). Think of being glued to hot concrete on the most scorching summer day: They essentially baked and died,” said Baum. “On land, wildflowers wilted and died, preventing entire populations from reproducing that year, and there was widespread leaf scorch and death in forests.”

Some species that could move modified their behavior: Ferruginous hawks reduced their flight time by about 81%, while wolves moved around more, perhaps seeking hunkered-down prey like mule deer and moose.

Meanwhile, species already adapted to hotter or more variable temperature ranges adjusted better than others.

The heat wave’s timing also mattered, said Adam Sibley, a remote sensing scientist and co-author of a 2025 paper that examined the impact on trees and forests. Plants tend to acclimate to heat throughout a season, so the triple-digit temperatures that struck in June hit harder than they would have in August.

So many tree needles died, in fact, that when Sibley drove to the Oregon coast with friends a few days after the heat wave ended, the tree canopy looked as though it had been dusted with orange snow.

New buds and needles are fragile for a number of reasons, said Christopher Still, a forest ecology professor at Oregon State University. Many contain fatty membranes that, when super-heated, will melt and cause the leaf to fall apart. Young leaves and needles also lack “heat hardening” mechanisms like specialized proteins that stabilize mature leaves and needles when it’s hot.

Many larger, more well-established trees, such as Douglas fir, lost a growing season: Their needles fell off, but grew back the following year. Other trees died, especially younger ones and species like Sitka spruce and western red cedar that require cooler, wetter temperatures.

The 2021 heat wave also rapidly dried grasses, flowers and other fine fuels, leading to record-breaking wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, according to a 2024 paper in the journal Nature.

WHILE THE TIMING of this year’s heat wave surprised many climatologists, the fact that it arrived in March may have ultimately saved some Southwestern plants, said Osvaldo Sala, a professor and director of Arizona State University’s Global Drylands Center.

During the hottest period, he explained, many plants were still dormant. Desert plants tie their growing cycles to rain and moisture instead of heat or sun duration. That means that, unlike in places like Wyoming, where cherry trees started blooming in March instead of May, desert plants were still waiting for rains to come.

Unfortunately, that early blooming has left the cherry trees and other flowering plants particularly susceptible to spring frosts, Still said.

The effects of this year’s heat dome have only exacerbated the winter’s record-setting heat and drought, Still added. Snowpack across much of the West was abysmal; in many places, it was the worst in recorded history.  

“The heat dome put an exclamation point on the worst winter in a century,” said Still. “It was the worst possible way to end the winter that was already worse than normal.”

Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Montor website.

Click the link to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

This Week’s Drought Summary

Widespread soaking rains fell across Texas and the Deep South, bringing a much needed moisture boost to these drought stricken areas. While sufficient to ease drought conditions across portions of Texas, the lower Mississippi Valley, and the Tennessee Valley, drought conditions remained mostly unchanged across southeastern Alabama, Georgia and northwestern Florida, where soil moisture and streamflows remain extremely low. Lighter rainfall also overspread the Northeast, which, combined with cooler temperatures helped slow the advancement of drought, and improved drought conditions in Maine. Where lighter accumulations occurred, there was slight expansion of drought and abnormal dryness across portions of the mid-Atlantic, Hudson Valley, and southeastern New England. Cooler temperatures and mostly dry weather overspread the Plains and Midwest. While drought conditions continued to expand across the Plains, the drier weather was mostly welcome across the upper Midwest and Corn Belt, allowing fieldwork to progress. Hot, dry weather promoted degradation across Arizona and northwestern Washington, while late season moisture across northern California did little to change the meager snowpack conditions…

High Plains

Light to moderate precipitation overspread much of the High Plains, with the heaviest accumulations (0.5 – 1.5 inch) falling across central Colorado, including late season snow across the higher elevations. This precipitation resulted in some drought reduction across central Colorado. Across the rest of the Plains, however, the moisture was not sufficient to engender substantive improvements. Despite cooler temperatures lowering evapotranspiration rates, some degradation occurred across Kansas and Nebraska, and far western North Dakota…

West

Outside of northern California, where late season moisture provided a boost to short-term streamflows and soil moisture but did little to change the unusually low snow cover across the northern Sierras, seasonably dry weather overspread most of the West. Recent moisture eased drought conditions across far western Montana. While little change to the drought depiction occurred across the West, hot, dry conditions exacerbated impacts across Arizona, resulting in some substantial degradation. Short term dryness also increased across northwestern Washington, resulting in expansion of D0.

South

Following last week’s beneficial rainfall, additional rain overspread much of Texas and Louisiana over the last several days, sparking additional drought reductions. Rainfall across central and western Texas eased drought across the upper Rio Grande Valley as well. Despite the beneficial rainfall, widespread severe to exceptional drought continues across the South Region, and it will take a sustained series of heavy precipitation events to begin any widespread easing of impacts. The beneficial rainfall missed the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma, where poor conditions continue to affect rangeland and winter wheat. Drought conditions also expanded across Arkansas…

Looking Ahead

During the next 7 days, an active pattern is favored to continue across the Southeast, with heavy rainfall (2 – 7 inches) possible along a swath from eastern Texas through southern Alabama. These rains would continue to bring drought relief and also a threat of severe weather. Lesser accumulations are favored across Georgia and Florida, which may limit the extent of any improvements. Widespread precipitation is also favored along the Ohio Valley and across the eastern seaboard, with the greatest potential for relief across the Northeast. Somewhat drier conditions across the mid-Atlantic may limit the potential for drought improvement. Light accumulations forecast across the Plains may do little to ease drought conditions, while another week of seasonable dryness is forecast across the West. Above-average temperatures across the West favor an acceleration of snowmelt, which may bring short term reservoir boosts but leaves the water supply even more short as summer approaches. Below-average temperatures are favored for the eastern half of the CONUS.

During the 8-14 day period, above-average temperatures are favored for much of the lower-48, with near normal temperatures forecast for the Northeast. Above-average precipitation is forecast for the southern tier, with the highest probabilities across Texas, eastern New Mexico, and Louisiana. A slight tilt towards above-normal precipitation extends across the Great Lakes Region into the Northeast, while below-average precipitation is favored for the northern Rockies.

Click the link to read the article on the USDA website (Ciji Taylor):

April 27, 2026

This is likely no surprise to you, but drought persists across the U.S. and is intensifying in some areas. No geographic area is immune to the potential of drought at any given time. The U.S. Drought Monitor provides a weekly drought assessment, and it plays an important role in USDA programs that help farmers and ranchers recover from drought.

The Facts

Fact #1 – Numerous agencies use the Drought Monitor to inform drought-related decisions.

The map identifies areas of drought and labels them by intensity on a weekly basis. It categorizes the entire country as being in one of six levels of drought. The first two, None and Abnormally Dry (D0), are not considered to be drought. The next four describe increasing levels of drought: Moderate (D1), Severe (D2), Extreme (D3) and Exceptional (D4). 

While many entities consult the Drought Monitor for drought information, drought declarations are made by federal, state and local agencies that may or may not use the Drought Monitor to inform their decisions. Some of the ways USDA uses it to determine a producer’s eligibility for certain drought assistance programs, like the Livestock Forage Disaster Program and Emergency Haying or Grazing on Conservation Reserve Program acres and to “fast-track” Secretarial drought disaster designations. 

Fact #2 – U.S. Drought Monitor is made with more than precipitation data.

When you think about drought, you probably think about water, or the lack of it. Precipitation plays a major role in the creation of the Drought Monitor, but the map’s author considers numerous indicators, including drought impacts and local insight from over 450 expert observers around the country. Authors use several dozen indicators to assess drought, including precipitation, streamflow, reservoir levels, temperature and evaporative demand, soil moisture and vegetation health. Because the drought monitor depicts both short and long‐term drought conditions, the authors must look at data for multiple timeframes. The final map produced each week represents a summary of the story being told by all the pieces of data. To help tell that story, authors don’t just look at data. They converse over the course of the map-making week with experts across the country and draw information about drought impacts from media reports and private citizens.

Fact #3 – A real person, using real data, updates the map.

Each week’s map author, not a computer, processes and analyzes data to update the drought monitor. The map authors are trained meteorologists from the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (the academic partner and website host of the Drought Monitor), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and USDA. The author’s job is to do what a computer can’t – use their expertise to reconcile the sometimes-conflicting stories told by each stream of data into a single assessment.

Fact #4 – The Drought Monitor provides a current snapshot, not a forecast.

The Drought Monitor is a “snapshot” of conditions observed during the most recent week and builds off the previous week’s map. The map is released on Thursdays and depicts conditions based on data for the week that ended the preceding Tuesday. Rain that falls on the Wednesday just before the USDM’s release won’t be reflected until the next map is published. This provides a consistent, week‐to‐week product and gives the author a window to assess the data and come up with a final map.

Fact #5 – Your input can be part of the drought-monitoring process.

State observers in the drought monitoring network relay on-the-ground information from numerous sources to the US Drought monitor author each week. That can include information that you contribute.

The Drought Monitor serves as a trigger for multiple forms of federal disaster relief for agricultural producers, and sometimes producers contact the author to suggest that drought conditions in their area are worse than what the latest drought monitor shows. When the author gets a call like that, it prompts them to look closely at all available data for that area, to see whether measurements of precipitation, temperature, soil moisture and other indicators corroborate producer-submitted reports. This is the process that authors follow whether they receive one report or one hundred reports, although reports from more points may help state officials and others know where to look for impacts.

There are multiple ways to contribute your observations:

There are multiple ways to contribute your observations:

• Email – Emails sent to droughtmonitor@unl.edu direct to the USDM authors.
• Submit CMOR reports – Use the Condition Monitoring Observer Report (CMOR) system to provide information and photos about how drought is affecting your area. Your report will appear immediately on an interactive map and will help Drought Monitor authors and others interpret weather data.
• Become a CoCoRaHS observer – Submit drought reports along with daily precipitation observations to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network. 

For more information, read our Ask the Expert blog with a NDMC climatologist or visit farmers.gov/protection-recovery.

Ciji Taylor is a USDA public affairs specialist