Drought conditions in the Pacific Northwest are not nearly as severe as they were last year, but some areas are still seeing severe, extreme and even exceptional drought.
About 38.5% of the region was completely drought-free as of Aug. 16, said Larry O'Neill with the Oregon Climate office at a regional drought webinar Monday.
He said that's good news, especially considering there were no drought-free areas recorded on last year's map around this same time.
"At this time last year, the majority of the Pacific Northwest was either in extreme or exceptional drought, which are the two worst drought categories," he said. "By many measures, it was one of the worst droughts in the recorded history (of) the Pacific Northwest."
But the region hasn't escaped drought altogether this year. About 22.3% of the region was abnormally dry, with 15.6% experiencing moderate drought, 11.7% experiencing severe drought and 11.4% experiencing extreme drought in the U.S. Drought Monitor's Aug. 16 measurement. One area in central Oregon, which makes up about 0.5% of the region as a whole, was experiencing exceptional drought conditions.
Drought can affect fire danger, agriculture, water habitats and irrigation, according to the monitor.
Regional breakdown
Washington does not have an active drought declaration at this time. O'Neill said the state's system considers drought-impacted areas as those with less than 75% of the normal water supply and anticipated hardships due to water shortages, and both are not met as of this time.
But the U.S. Drought Monitor system takes additional factors into account, he said, including soil moisture, snowpack and others.
"A region might be in a moderate drought without an official drought declaration," he said.
The national system shows Central Washington has some abnormally dry and moderate drought areas, including in Yakima County.
Central and eastern Oregon and southern Idaho are seeing the worst of it, O'Neill said.
In Oregon, 17 counties currently have a state drought declaration status. In Idaho, 34 counties south of the Salmon River have a state drought declaration status.
Heat and precipitation
O'Neill said average temperatures for July were above average for the region, with some scattered patches reaching record warm temperatures.
"And of course, we had that prolonged heat wave during the second half of July and through parts of the first parts of August," he said.
O'Neill said the last 60 days have been drier than normal throughout the region, though scattered spots throughout Idaho, Oregon and Washington have seen some thunderstorms or rain.
"But for the most part, it has been much drier than normal," he said.
He noted the precipitation-filled spring this year, which was a stark contrast to spring 2021, which he said was one of the driest springs on record.
"The whiplash between these two different springs was really a challenge in advising people on water supply and wildfire risk issues because we just were not sure what (we were going) to experience," he said.
"A challenge going forward is if the wintertime precipitation isn't well above normal, and then we're really going to depend on spring conditions to make up any deficits, and these last two springs really showed us that we can go back and forth into extremes in either direction."
