With the latest drought monitor released on Thursday, Feb. 19, the drought conditions continue to worsen across the state. We saw an increase in the severe drought coverage across the state from 68% of the state to 76%.
Let’s take a look at some of the historic impacts and what this drought could mean for our area.
The drought conditions are broken into 5 different categories: Abnormally dry, moderate drought, severe drought, extreme drought, and exceptional drought. Here are the current numbers across the state for each of the drought categories.
This means that all of the state is abnormally dry, and of that dry area, nearly all of it is under a moderate drought. Over the three-quarters of the state is also seeing severe drought conditions, and 5% of the state is under an extreme drought.
When we get into the severe drought category, which all of our area is experiencing, we start to see multiple prolonged impacts according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
We can see dryland crop yields lower, swimming areas and boat ramps close, voluntary and mandatory water restrictions, and wildfires become difficult to extinguish.
Parts of our area are now under an extreme drought, and even more impacts are possible including a decrease in hydropower if that lasts for a long period of time.
Although we received some rain this past weekend, we still need roughly between 5-7″ of rain within the next month to break our drought. Some areas towards Moore county and into the Charlotte area need close to 9″.
Monarch butterflies wintering in the mountains of western Mexico have survived January’s arctic blast, according to scientists studying the impact of the cold air on their overwintering sites.”There was a lot of concern that the arctic blast would reach all the way down to their overwintering sites. But it appears that it did not,” said Emily Geest from the Oklahoma City Zoo.Despite the close brush with the arctic intrusion, Geest noted that monarchs are surprisingly resilient to cold, emphasizing the importance of moisture.”They can tolerate temperatures as low as 18 degrees Fahrenheit, even though freezing occurs near 32 degrees. They can tolerate so long as they don’t have moisture on their bodies,” she said.In previous years, such as 2002 and 2016, the reserve saw a combination of cold and moisture, leading to significant declines in monarch numbers that took years to recover.However, reports from Mexico suggest that it’s been a positive overwintering year.”Some of the reports coming out of Mexico suggest that it’s been a really good overwintering year. The population is as big as it’s ever been, but we’ll have to see what happens,” Geest said.Monarchs are expected to begin their migration back north in a few weeks, arriving in Oklahoma by early April.Excitingly, monarchs tagged in Oklahoma last fall have been found at the overwintering sites.”We just found out a few days ago that at least two of them were found again in the overwintering sites – so we’re really excited to see what happens with these monarchs,” Geest said.However, the lingering drought in Oklahoma poses a potential concern for the butterflies upon their return, as rainfall is crucial for their food source.”They need plants – they need flowers and nectar. And if we persist into a drought, things may stay dry. There may not be enough nectar for them,” Geest said.
Monarch butterflies wintering in the mountains of western Mexico have survived January’s arctic blast, according to scientists studying the impact of the cold air on their overwintering sites.
“There was a lot of concern that the arctic blast would reach all the way down to their overwintering sites. But it appears that it did not,” said Emily Geest from the Oklahoma City Zoo.
Despite the close brush with the arctic intrusion, Geest noted that monarchs are surprisingly resilient to cold, emphasizing the importance of moisture.
“They can tolerate temperatures as low as 18 degrees Fahrenheit, even though freezing occurs near 32 degrees. They can tolerate so long as they don’t have moisture on their bodies,” she said.
In previous years, such as 2002 and 2016, the reserve saw a combination of cold and moisture, leading to significant declines in monarch numbers that took years to recover.
However, reports from Mexico suggest that it’s been a positive overwintering year.
“Some of the reports coming out of Mexico suggest that it’s been a really good overwintering year. The population is as big as it’s ever been, but we’ll have to see what happens,” Geest said.
Monarchs are expected to begin their migration back north in a few weeks, arriving in Oklahoma by early April.
Excitingly, monarchs tagged in Oklahoma last fall have been found at the overwintering sites.
“We just found out a few days ago that at least two of them were found again in the overwintering sites – so we’re really excited to see what happens with these monarchs,” Geest said.
However, the lingering drought in Oklahoma poses a potential concern for the butterflies upon their return, as rainfall is crucial for their food source.
“They need plants – they need flowers and nectar. And if we persist into a drought, things may stay dry. There may not be enough nectar for them,” Geest said.
The Trump administration on Friday gave its approval for plans to build Sites Reservoir, a vast 13-mile-long off-stream lake north of Sacramento that would provide water to 500,000 acres of Central Valley farmland and 24 million people, including residents of Santa Clara County, parts of the East Bay and Los Angeles.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation issued a document called a “record of decision” for the project, signing off on its environmental review process.
“This decision reflects years of analysis, public engagement and coordination, and establishes the foundation for construction through sound partnerships that will ultimately result in additional water supplies for California,” said Andrea Travnicek, assistant secretary of the Department of Interior.
Planned in the sweeping open pasturelands of rural Colusa County, near the town of Maxwell, if completed Sites would be the largest new reservoir built in California since 1979, when the federal government opened New Melones Lake in the Sierra Foothills between Sonora and Angels Camp.
Estimated to cost $6.2 to $6.8 billion, the project is strongly backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration has earmarked $1.1 billion in state bond funds for it, along with former President Biden, whose administration approved a $2.2 billion federal loan for it in 2022, and Republican and Democratic members of California’s congressional delegation.
Planners of the project on Friday called the federal approval a significant milestone in a long journey.
“This decision affirms what our extensive analysis has shown — that Sites Reservoir can reliably capture and store water in a way that supports both people and the environment,” said Jerry Brown, executive director of the Sites Project Authority. “With this additional environmental approval, we can now leverage all available construction funding and are focused on moving with intensity and purpose toward construction.”
Brown, who is not related to the former governor, is the former general manager of the Contra Costa Water District and helped build and expand Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County.
Sites is scheduled to begin construction by the end of 2026 or early 2027 with completion by 2033. It would become the eighth-largest reservoir in California, holding 1.5 million acre-feet of water — enough for at least 7.5 million people a year. Crews would build dams in a 13,000-acre area, and fill with the site with water brought in through pipes from the Sacramento River during periods of high flow.
Supporters call Sites Reservoir a critical part of California’s water future that can help capture more water during wet years for use during dry years. California has endured three severe droughts in the past 19 years — from 2007 to 2009; 2012 to 2016; and 2020 to 2022 — all of which involved water restrictions for millions of residents and businesses in cities and cutbacks to farmers.
Brown noted this week that the given California’s recent wet winters, Sites would have filled to the top in 2023 and 2024 if it had been completed.
Critics of the project include some environmental groups, who sued unsuccessfully in 2024 to block the project on the grounds that it would harm fish and wildlife by diverting water from the Sacramento River that otherwise would flow into the already heavily pumped Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
On Friday, they downplayed the federal approval.
“Sites is still a nearly $7 billion gamble that delivers little water at enormous cost, threatens rivers and fisheries, and distracts from real solutions,” said Keiko Mertz, Policy Director of Friends of the River, an environmental group.
The Sites project has shown significant momentum in the past two years.
It has 22 water agencies around the state have committed money for planning and signed up to be partners, and 16 agencies on a waiting list.
Those partner agencies include the Santa Clara Valley Water District in San Jose, Zone 7 Water Agency in Livermore, Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles, and others.
But significant challenges reman. The State Water Resources Control Board, whose members are appointed by Newsom, has not yet approved the water rights to allow construction to begin.
Last year, the Sites Reservoir Authority announced that the price tag had jumped from $4.5 billion to at least $6.2 billion, and potentially as much as $6.8 billion.
Brown and others attributed that to inflation for concrete, steel and other construction materials since 2021, when the original estimate was generated. Factory shutdowns during the COVID pandemic caused many construction materials to increase in price, and tariffs imposed by President Trump have led to more cost increases in recent months.
Although most of the costs would be paid by the 22 partner agencies who will get proportional amounts of water storage based on how much money they put in, the federal government has not yet said how much money it will contribute and how much water that would buy.
Further, in the past several weeks, the project has experienced some labor unrest after several unions, led by Northern California carpenters, have complained that the contractor the Sites Project Authority selected for the first parts of the job, Barnard Construction of Montana, has not worked closely on enough major projects with union workers in California. They supported other bidders, such as Kiewit, based in Omaha, which has completed projects such as rebuilding the spillway at Oroville Dam in Butte County.
On Wednesday at a meeting of the California Water Commission, the state agency that is expected to provide $1.1 billion to the project, several commissioners tersely told the Sites planners come back in a month having settled the labor dispute.
“We really want you to succeed,” said Commissioner Alexandre Makler, of Berkeley, who works as an executive vice president for Calpine Corporation. “Fix the labor issue.”
Cuba has dealt with several natural disaster in 2025. Here, a man walks through a flooded street in a neighborhood affected by Hurricane Melissa in Santiago de Cuba on Oct. 29, 2025.
YAMIL LAGE
AFP via Getty Images
Cuba, already struggling with prolonged power outages, food shortages, epidemics and its worst economic crisis in decades, is now facing another looming threat: a sharp increase in forest fires expected during the first months of 2026.
Authorities have warned that current conditions — including a harsh drought season, deteriorated forest infrastructure and large amounts of combustible vegetation — could significantly worsen the fire season between January and May, particularly in the western province of Pinar del Río.
“The forecasts are not good,” state media reported this week, citing specialists who consider the first half of the year the period of greatest danger for forest fires in Cuba. According to estimates published by the state newspaper Granma, Pinar del Río could see between 85 and 112 forest fires during the peak danger period. Officials warn that damages in 2026 could reach as much as 4,000 hectares.
The province, which plays a key role in Cuba’s agricultural production and has extensive forest coverage, is facing a combination of low rainfall, poor conditions of forest roads and an accumulation of dry vegetation that increases fire risk.
Rubén Guerra Corrales, a member of the leadership of Cuba’s Forest Ranger Corps, said the province is expected to close 2025 with about 100 forest fires. Thirteen of those were classified as large or very large, burning more than 9,000 hectares.
Experts say most forest fires in Cuba are caused by human activity. In recent years, recurrent blazes have affected municipalities such as San Juan y Martínez, Mantua and Minas de Matahambre.
The Forest Ranger Corps says it relies on satellite monitoring systems and observation towers to detect fires, but the growing frequency and scale of blazes have strained resources, particularly as the country faces fuel shortages, transportation problems and limited access to equipment.
Pinar del Río has more than 411,000 hectares of forest, with trees covering nearly half of its territory, making it Cuba’s second most reforested province. Despite that, fires in the past two years have caused significant damage.
Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 24, 2025, the province reported 70 forest fires that affected more than 160 hectares of forest, according to a Forest Ranger Corps report cited by the EFE news agency.
The expected increase in forest fires adds yet another layer of strain to a country already grappling with infrastructure decay, environmental stress and a deepening economic collapse, raising concerns about Cuba’s ability to respond effectively if conditions continue to deteriorate in 2026.
In Algeria, water shortages left faucets dry, prompting protesters to riot and set tires ablaze.
In Gaza, as people waited for water at a community tap, an Israeli drone fired on them, killing eight.
In Ukraine, Russian rockets slammed into the country’s largest dam, unleashing a plume of fire over the hydroelectric plant and causing widespread blackouts.
These are some of the 420 water-related conflicts researchers documented for 2024 in the latest update of the Pacific Institute’s Water Conflict Chronology, a global database of water-related violence.
The year featured a record number of violent incidents over water around the world, far surpassing the 355 in 2023, continuing a steeply rising trend. The violence more than quadrupled in the last five years.
In 2024, there were 420 water-related conflicts globally
The majority of incidents were in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe.
Russia and Ukraine
51 conflicts
Russia and Ukraine
51 conflicts
Pacific Institute
Sean Greene LOS ANGELES TIMES
The new data from the Oakland-based water think tank show also that drinking water wells, pipes and dams are increasingly coming under attack.
“In almost every region of the world, there is more and more violence being reported over water,” said Peter Gleick, the Pacific Institute’s co-founder and senior fellow, and it “underscores the urgent need for international attention.”
The researchers collect information from news reports and other sources and accounts. They classify it into three categories: instances in which water was a trigger of violence, water systems were targeted and water was a “casualty” of violence, for example when shell fragments hit a water tank.
Not every case involves injuries or deaths but many do.
The region with the most violent incidents was the Middle East, with 138 reported. That included 66 in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both in Gaza and the West Bank.
In the West Bank there were numerous reports of Israeli settlers destroying water pipelines and tanks and attacking Palestinian farmers.
Gleick noted that when the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders last year, accusing them of crimes against humanity, the charges mentioned Israeli military attacks on Gaza water systems.
“It is an acknowledgment that these attacks are violations of international law,” he said. “There ought to be more enforcement of international laws protecting water systems from attacks.”
Water systems also were targeted frequently in the Russia-Ukraine war, in which the researchers tallied 51 violent incidents.
Residents collect water in bottles in Pokrovsk, Ukraine, where repeated Russian shelling has left civilians without functioning infrastructure.
(George Ivanchenko / Associated Press)
Russian strikes disrupted water service in Ukrainian cities, and oil spilled into a river after Russian forces attacked an oil depot.
“These aren’t water wars. These are wars in which water is being used as a weapon or is a casualty of the conflict,” Gleick said.
The researchers also found water scarcity and drought are prompting a growing number of violent conflicts.
“Climate change is making those problems worse,” Gleick said.
Many conflicts were in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
In India, residents angry about water shortages assaulted a city worker.
In Jammu, India, a woman carries a container of drinking water filled from leaking water pipes in March.
(Channi Anand / Associated Press)
In Cameroon, rice farmers clashed with fishers, leaving one dead and three injured.
At a refugee camp in Kenya, three people died in a fight over drinking water.
There’s an increase in conflicts over irrigation, disputes pitting farmers against cities, and violence arising in places where only some water is safe to drink.
A man carries jugs to fetch water from a hole in the sandy riverbed in Makueni County, Kenya in February 2024.
(Brian Inganga / Associated Press)
Gleick, who has been studying water-related violence for more than three decades, said the purpose of the list is to raise awareness and encourage policymakers to act to reduce fighting, bloodshed and turmoil.
“The failure to do that is inexcusable and it contributes to a lot of misery,” Gleick said. “It contributes to ill health, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, water-related diseases, and it contributes to conflicts over water.”
In Latin America, there were dozens of violent incidents involving water last year.
In the Mexican state of Veracruz, protesters were blocking a road to denounce a pork processing plant, which they accused of using too much water and spewing pollution, when police opened fire, killing two men.
In Honduras, environmental activist Juan López, who had spoken up to protect rivers from mining, was gunned down as he left church. He was the fourth member of his group to be murdered.
A man fills containers with water because of a shortage caused by high temperatures and drought in Veracruz, Mexico in June 2024.
(Felix Marquez / Associated Press)
“There needs to be more attention on this issue, especially at the international level, but at the national level as well,” said Morgan Shimabuku, a senior researcher with the Pacific Institute. “It is getting worse, and we need to turn that tide.”
For 2024, there were few events in the U.S., but among them were cyberattacks on water utilities in Texas and Indiana.
In one, Russian hackers claimed responsibility for tampering with an Indiana wastewater treatment plant. Authorities said the attack caused minimal disruption. In another, a pro-Russian hacktivist group manipulated systems at water facilities in small Texas towns, causing water to overflow.
The Pacific Institute’s database now lists more than 2,750 conflicts. Most have occurred since 2000. The researchers are adding incidents from 2025 as well as previous years.
During extreme drought in Iran worsened by climate change, farmers were desperate enough to go up against security forces, demanding access to river water. Iran’s water crisis, compounded by decades of excessive groundwater pumping, has grown so severe that the president said Tehran no longer can remain the capital and the government will have to move it to another city.
Tensions also have been growing between Iran and Afghanistan over the Helmand River, with Iranian leaders accusing their upstream neighbor of not letting enough water flow into the country.
Gleick said if the drought persists and the Iranian government doesn’t improve how it manages water, “I would expect to see more violence.”
The first recorded death from West Nile virus this year in L.A. County was confirmed Friday by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
The individual, whose details have been kept anonymous, was hospitalized in the San Fernando Valley for neurological illness caused by the mosquito-borne virus. In Southern California, October is the middle of mosquito season.
Across Los Angeles County, 14 West Nile virus infections have been documented in 2025; half have been in the San Fernando Valley.
L.A. has had an average of 58 West Nile infections per year since 2020, with an average of one death per year, according to data from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
West Nile virus affects around 2,000 Americans a year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Viral infection can a number of symptoms, with mild illness symptoms consisting of fever, headache, body aches, vomiting, rash or diarrhea, the CDC says.
A more severe and concerning case can cause neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness, or paralysis. Officials warn that the effects of severe illness could be permanent or result in death.
In some cases, infection does not cause symptoms.
The California Public Health Department notes that there are a number of species within the Culex mosquito genus, which is a primary carrier of the virus, found throughout Los Angeles County.
In a 2025 study from the National Institutes of Health, research showed that droughts raised risk factors for West Nile virus. Data from more than 50,000 traps revealed that while drought conditions reduced overall mosquito populations and standing bodies of water, it consolidated the infected mosquitos and birds, which also carry the disease, around limited water sources. The result is faster transmission rate among the smaller populations, which go on to infect humans. In the San Fernando Valley, where drought conditions are expect to continue through a dry La Niña season, the reduced water sources may lead to higher infection rates.
To avoid contracting West Nile virus, the CDC recommends reducing outside activities during the daytime, when mosquitos are most active. Officials also say that emptying or replacing containers of standing water (where mosquitos tend to breed), installing window screens, and wearing protective skin coverings or using insect repellent when outside can also reduce exposure.
Parts of Alabama are experiencing extreme drought conditions right now. The Forestry Commission has put the entire state under a fire danger advisory. The lack of rain is impacting many crops, which could affect our fall and winter holidays — including pumpkins and Christmas trees.And Alabama isn’t alone, as some states and regions from New England to the Rocky Mountains, which count on tourism dollars from leaf-peeping season, seeing, in some cases, leaves change colors earlier, muted colors, and fewer leaves to peep.According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, more than 40% of the country was considered to be in a drought in early October, the Associated Press reports.That’s more than twice the average, Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist, told the AP.Rippey, an author of the drought monitor — which is a partnership between the federal government and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln — told the AP that drought has hit the Northeast and Western U.S. especially hard. Related video below: Colorful foliage started early this year because of drought conditionsAt The Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden, Alabama, they grow some of their pumpkins; many of the small pie pumpkins come from their own fields. But because of a lack of rain, most are from farms in other states.For a day at the pumpkin patch, this dry, warm weather is perfect, but it’s not so great for the pumpkin growing season.Pumpkin Patch owner Julie Swann said, “We have not had rain, probably for us it’s been since August. And then prior to that, it was probably the good rains that we had, you know, April, maybe some of June.”The Great Pumpkin Patch is parched, and the drought does have an impact on the gourds they grow there.”It doesn’t necessarily affect the size simply because pumpkins take so long to produce. But it does the quantity, it affects that, you don’t have as many, you know, to produce as far as vines won’t produce as much without the rain,” Swann said. So the owners have to reach out to farmers in Tennessee and Michigan and buy their pumpkins to sell in Hayden, which is around 30 miles from Birmingham. And Halloween may not be the only holiday impacted by the drought. Paul Beavers at Beavers Christmas Tree Farm in Trafford, Alabama, said the lack of rain is particularly hard on his youngest, smallest trees.“If it continues all the way through winter, it might kill some of my smaller trees. Hopefully, it’ll stop sometime in the next month or two,” Beavers said.A lack of rain means the trees will just stop growing, so the drought could impact the size of your Christmas tree. But the trees tagged for sale are five years old or more, so problems might not be realized till Christmas of 2030.“We’re still going to have over 3000 trees ready to sell this year,” Beavers said. When the owners of the pumpkin patch have to buy more pumpkins from out-of-state farms, their costs increase, but they say this year, they are not raising prices for customers.They’ll have to re-evaluate that next fall. ___The Associated Press contributed to this report.
HAYDEN, Ala. —
Parts of Alabama are experiencing extreme drought conditions right now. The Forestry Commission has put the entire state under a fire danger advisory. The lack of rain is impacting many crops, which could affect our fall and winter holidays — including pumpkins and Christmas trees.
And Alabama isn’t alone, as some states and regions from New England to the Rocky Mountains, which count on tourism dollars from leaf-peeping season, seeing, in some cases, leaves change colors earlier, muted colors, and fewer leaves to peep.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, more than 40% of the country was considered to be in a drought in early October, the Associated Press reports.
That’s more than twice the average, Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist, told the AP.
Rippey, an author of the drought monitor — which is a partnership between the federal government and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln — told the AP that drought has hit the Northeast and Western U.S. especially hard.
Related video below: Colorful foliage started early this year because of drought conditions
At The Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden, Alabama, they grow some of their pumpkins; many of the small pie pumpkins come from their own fields. But because of a lack of rain, most are from farms in other states.
For a day at the pumpkin patch, this dry, warm weather is perfect, but it’s not so great for the pumpkin growing season.
Pumpkin Patch owner Julie Swann said, “We have not had rain, probably for us it’s been since August. And then prior to that, it was probably the good rains that we had, you know, April, maybe some of June.”
The Great Pumpkin Patch is parched, and the drought does have an impact on the gourds they grow there.
“It doesn’t necessarily affect the size simply because pumpkins take so long to produce. But it does the quantity, it affects that, you don’t have as many, you know, to produce as far as vines won’t produce as much without the rain,” Swann said.
So the owners have to reach out to farmers in Tennessee and Michigan and buy their pumpkins to sell in Hayden, which is around 30 miles from Birmingham.
And Halloween may not be the only holiday impacted by the drought. Paul Beavers at Beavers Christmas Tree Farm in Trafford, Alabama, said the lack of rain is particularly hard on his youngest, smallest trees.
“If it continues all the way through winter, it might kill some of my smaller trees. Hopefully, it’ll stop sometime in the next month or two,” Beavers said.
A lack of rain means the trees will just stop growing, so the drought could impact the size of your Christmas tree. But the trees tagged for sale are five years old or more, so problems might not be realized till Christmas of 2030.
“We’re still going to have over 3000 trees ready to sell this year,” Beavers said.
When the owners of the pumpkin patch have to buy more pumpkins from out-of-state farms, their costs increase, but they say this year, they are not raising prices for customers.
Portland, Maine — Leaf-peeping season has arrived in the Northeast and beyond, but weeks of drought have dulled this year’s autumn colors and sent leaves fluttering to the ground earlier than usual.
Soaking in the fall foliage is an annual tradition in the New England states as well as areas such as the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina and Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As the days shorten and temperatures drop, chlorophyll in leaves breaks down, and they turn to the autumn tones of yellow, orange and red.
But dry weather in summer and fall can change all that because the lack of water causes leaves to brown and fall more quickly. And that’s happening this year, as more than 40% of the country was considered to be in a drought in early October, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
That’s more than twice the average, said Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist and an author of the drought monitor, which is a partnership between the federal government and University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Drought has hit the Northeast and western U.S. especially hard, he said.
It all adds up to fewer leaves to peep.
“I think it might be a little bit of a short and less colorful season, for the most part,” Rippey said. “The color is just not going to be there this year for some hillsides.”
Cyclists ride among leaves ib Sept. 30, 2025 in Frisco, Colo.
Brittany Peterson / AP
Despite the gloomy forecast, autumn enthusiasts said it’s still a great year to get out and enjoy nature’s fireworks display. There is still a lot of color in New England’s trees, said Andy Finton, senior conservation ecologist with The Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts.
Climate change is stressing forests with severe weather and heat waves, but autumn in New England remains a beautiful time of year to experience the wonderment of forest ecosystems firsthand, he said.
“Our trees and our forests have an inherent resilience,” Finton said. “They are still very resilient, and I am constantly surprised at how wonderful the fall season is despite these stresses.”
Leaf-peepers undeterred for most part
The tourism business built around leaf peeping has also proven resilient. At the Mills Falls Resort Collection at the Lake in Meredith, New Hampshire, general manager Barbara Beckwith said business is good at the four inns that have 170 rooms. The number of Canadian tourists is down, Beckwith acknowledged, but she said that’s been made up with domestic leaf peepers, mostly from New England.
Beckwith said her properties were booked solid on weekends through mid-October and had been for weeks.
“This year is actually going to be better than last year,” Beckwith said. “Last year was an election and that put a lot of trepidation in people. Now, they are traveling. The uncertainty of the election is over. We all know whose president now and we are traveling.”
The view from Artists Bluff, a popular destination for fall foliage in Franconia Notch State Park in Franconia, N.H., on Oct. 8, 2025.
Holly Ramer / AP
Chris Proulx, executive director of the Mount Washington (New Hampshire) Valley Chamber of Commerce, said the decline in Canadian tourists by as much as 80% seen this summer has continued into the fall. But the region is faring better, he said, thanks to an uptick in travelers from other countries and its reputation for having one of the country’s best leaf peeping seasons.
“This is the one season where people make plans in advance to come in addition to travelers from all of the country and all over the world,” Proulx said.
Leaf peeping was so popular in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains this year that one town temporarily closed its highway offramp to alleviate gridlock. The area put on a display of yellow aspen trees dotting the mountains between evergreens, their delicate leaves vibrating in the wind.
But there were signs of a dry spring in the central part of the state, one that is more severe the farther west you travel, said Colorado State Forest Service entomologist Dan West, who spends many fall days in a plane looking at how insect infestations are affecting tree health.
Crispy edges, muted colors, and dropping leaves before they can take on a red or purple hue are all signs of drought stress, West said.
“The tree is shutting down processes early and we basically just see this muted kind of a show for the fall,” he said.
In Denver, arborist Michael Sundberg also said he’s seeing less vibrant color than usual, and autumn feels like it arrived earlier than usual this year. It’s still a beautiful time of year, but there might be less of it to enjoy, he said.
“It’s weird to have color peaking this early in the mountains and then for Denver to be peaking at the same time,” he said. “Usually we’re later in October before we really go off.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: A new “Vegas Myths Busted” publishes every Monday, with a bonus Flashback Friday edition. Today’s edition originally ran on July 9, 2024.
Las Vegas is the second driest city in the US after Yuma, Ariz., according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with an average rainfall of just 5.37 inches a year. So why on Earth was a big city built in such a waterless hellscape?
Large portions of downtown Las Vegas used to look like this. This is Stewart Ranch, circa 1905. Occupying the site of the Old Mormon Fort, its water supply came entirely from a bubbling creek fed by mountain runoff. (Image: nps.gov)
Because it wasn’t.
While rain barely falls on Las Vegas, it falls plenty in the mountains surrounding it. For more than 15,000 years, runoff from snowmelt and downpours at higher altitudes fed springs and streams that broke through the desert floor and flowed freely (and, during storms, uncontrollably) through Las Vegas.
Large portions of downtown Las Vegas used to look like this. This is Stewart Ranch, circa 1905. Occupying the site of the Old Mormon Fort, its water supply came entirely from a bubbling creek fed by mountain runoff. (Image: nps.gov)
Rather than a harsh desert, the region was actually an oasis inside a harsh desert when it was founded in 1905. (“Las Vegas” is Spanish for “The Meadows.”)
Today, its underground aquifers are drained nearly dry and the mountain runoff is funneled into concrete flood channels that deliver it directly to Lake Mead. But when they were allowed to (and could) flow naturally, the main waterways — Las Vegas Creek, Duck Creek, and what’s known today as the Flamingo Wash — provided ample water to drink and bathe with, as well as to sustain lush grass and thickets of mesquite and willow trees that supported their own diverse array of nondesert wildlife.
This water source allowed Native Americans to survive and thrive here for at least 5,000 years. Then it made Las Vegas a vital stop on the Old Spanish Trail between Santa Fe and Los Angeles.
In fact, it was while mapping that trail in 1829 that Raphael Rivera, a scout for the first Mexican expedition through Southern Nevada, bestowed upon the region its Spanish name.
Two unidentified hunters stalk prey in an unidentified Las Vegas waterway in an undated photo. (Image: Las Vegas Springs Preserve)
Related Bonus Myth
The first permanent European settlement in Las Vegas wasn’t abandoned because of a lack of water. A combination of factors caused 32 Mormon missionaries to ditch the Old Mormon Fort two years after they built it on the Las Vegas Creek in 1855.
These factors included disappointing mining and crop yields, dissension among the leaders, deteriorating relations with the Native Americans they tried converting to Mormonism, and the beginning of what the Mormons refer to as the Utah War against the US government, which they returned home to help fight.
Troubled Water
In 1902, Las Vegas pioneer Helen J. Stewart sold most of her ranch on Las Vegas Creek, and its water rights, to Montana Sen. William A. Clark and his San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad. This allowed the railroad to build a system that pumped running water from the creek directly to the 1,200 business and residential lots it sold in what eventually became downtown Las Vegas.
Five years later, the new city’s residents began drilling wells into the aquifer for extra water. Often, these wells weren’t capped, allowing copious amounts of the precious resource to gush aboveground where most of it evaporated. People didn’t understand where the water came from, and the force with which it gushed gave them the misconception that its supply was endless.
By the summer of 1935, so much more of its water was pumped out than had been naturally replenished, Las Vegas Creek dried up for the first time. This prompted Nevada State Engineer Alfred Merritt Smith to declare Las Vegas dangerously overdrawn.
An unidentified man and his pooch pose in front of a ranch house on Las Vegas Creek circa 1902. (Image: UNLV Special Collections)
Smith proposed metering water usage, but the Nevada State Legislature opposed all such anti-development crazy talk.
By 1962, the water table finally sank so low, the Las Vegas Springs stopped flowing to the surface entirely. This killed most of the vegetation its springs and streams had sustained, as well as several distinct species of frogs and fish.
By 1972, the last remnant of Las Vegas Creek was doomed to be paved over for a new expressway. This remnant still quenched a green but slowly dying half-mile swath of vegetation just west of downtown and adjacent to the Meadows Mall. (Get the name? Most people don’t because there aren’t many meadows left in Las Vegas.)
By this time, Las Vegas was drawing most of its water from the Colorado River, via pipes poked into a completely full Lake Mead, so no loud alarm bells sounded.Preserve)
Until UNLV archeology professor Claude Warren conducted a survey that found evidence of human occupation on the site dating back thousands of years.
One of 14 habitat ponds restored with Las Vegas Creek water by the Las Vegas Springs Preserve. (Image: Las Vegas Springs
The Las Vegas Valley Water District, with the help of concerned citizens, used this surprise to get the Las Vegas Springs added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. And that’s what forced the Nevada Department of Transportation to divert US 95 around the 180-acre site.
To protect, and attempt to restore, what little remains of the Las Vegas Springs, the Las Vegas Springs Preserve was established on the site in 2007.
To date, according to the organization’s website, it has restored seven acres of wetlands, including a stream and 14 habitat ponds.
That may be a drop in the bucket, but it beats doing nothing at all.
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Despite an early-summer soaking that triggered devastating floods, parts of Minnesota are now in a severe drought.
After an overabundance of spring and summer rain that overflowed river banks, flooded homes and even burst dams, weather in the state has taken a complete 180 when it comes to rainfall.
Despite this, Melissa Dye, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Chanhassen, said we are still ahead on rainfall for the year, by just over four inches.
The reason for the excessive dryness over the past 45 days has to do with the winds that steer weather, known as the jet stream.
“We’ve had a weaker jet stream and a lot of the storms have missed us to the north or to the south, and we just haven’t had the moisture up here,” said Dye.
Another factor, Dye says, is climate change.
“If we think of weather as the day-to-day, and the climate as the long term, we start to see more and more of the patterns where things are dryer, warmer, more extremes,” said Dye.
As for when we could see rain next, Dye said that will likely happen next weekend.
The drought likely will not be overcome ahead of a La Niña winter, where, whether you love it or hate it, we should see our typical Minnesota winter weather.
Lake Koronia, one of largest in Greece, is shrinking after a prolonged drought and a summer of record-breaking temperatures, leaving behind cracked earth, dead fish and a persistent stench.
Where once fishermen pulled trout and tench into their boats, youths on motorbikes now joyride in the dust.
Locals say they can see the 42-square-kilometre (16-square-mile) expanse of water near Thessaloniki retreating day by day — a fate shared by three other important natural lakes in Greece’s Central Macedonian breadbasket.
“The stench from the lake is getting very bad. If we don’t get enough snow and rain, the problem will get worse next year,” said local community leader Kostas Hadzivoulgaridis.
“We need (officials) to take immediate action to protect the lake,” the 50-year-old told AFP.
Water levels at three other natural lakes in the region — Doirani, Volvi and Pikrolimni — are also at their lowest in a decade, according to data last month from the Greek Biotope Wetland Centre.
Over the last two years, rainfall in the region has been “very low” and the temperatures recorded this year were the highest in the last decade, according to Irini Varsami, a local hydrologist.
As well as losing water directly through evaporation, the lake is being drained by the “increasing irrigation needs of (farmers in) the surrounding area”, one of the important food-producing plains in the country.
‘We hope for rain’
While the shores look like a lunar landscape bereft of life, flocks of migratory pink flamingos graze in the low water further in.
Anthi Vafiadou, a regional supervisor for the Greek state environmental protection agency, said it was “too early” to draw conclusions on the impact of the drought on the lake’s biodiversity.
“We must see how the winter season evolves. We hope there will be more rain,” she told AFP.
But what is certain, according to the Biotope Wetland Centre, is that climate change is putting huge pressure on the lakes.
According to the national observatory, Greece had the warmest winter and summer on record since reliable data collection began in 1960.
Greece’s environment ministry this week unveiled a multi-billion-euro plan to boost the water supply and limit rampant water loss through poor management.
‘Completely disappeared’
Less than an hour’s drive to the north is a bleak vision of what the future might hold.
Pikrolimni, or “Bitter Lake”, is the only salt lake in mainland Greece.
But Pikrolimni is a lake in name only now. All that remains are the patterns formed by the water that evaporated during the prolonged drought.
Hotels and a mud spa around its edge lie abandoned.
“This is the first summer that the lake has been in such a state. There has been no rain, the water has completely disappeared and the lake has literally dried up,” said Argyris Vergis, an 80-year-old local.
“This area used to be busy with tourists, but now you can see motorcyclists racing on the lake on the internet. It’s tragic,” the retired bank worker said.
Volos, Greece — More than 100 tons of dead fish were collected in and around the port of Volos in central Greece after a mass die-off linked to extreme weather fluctuations, authorities said Thursday. The dead freshwater fish filled the bay 200 miles north of Athens, and nearby rivers.
The die-off has hit local businesses along the seafront, reducing commercial activity by 80% in the past three days, according to Volos’ Chamber of Commerce.
Local officials say millions of dead fish have washed up on the beach and clogged the port and rivers around the city of Volos, Greece, as seen here on Aug. 27, 2024, spreading an incredible stench and alarming local authorities, residents and tourists.
Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto/Getty
Fishing trawlers have been chartered by the regional authorities, along with earthmovers, to scoop the dead fish out of the sea and load them onto trucks bound for an incinerator.
The fish came from Lake Karla in central Greece, a body of water drained in the early 1960s and restored in 2018 to combat the effects of drought.
“There are millions of dead fish all the way from Lake Karla and 20 kilometers (12 miles) eastward,” Anna Maria Papadimitriou, the deputy regional governor of the central Thessaly area, told state-run television.
A woman looks at a river with its surface covered in dead fish, in Volos, Greece, Aug. 29, 2024.
Ayhan Mehmet/Anadolu/Getty
“Right now, there is a huge effort underway to clean up the millions of dead fish that have washed along the shorelines and riverbanks… an effort that involves multiple contractors,” she said.
Water levels rose abruptly in fall 2023 during a deadly storm that caused extensive flooding in central Greece, but have since receded due to low rainfall and successive summer heat waves.
The mayor of Volos lashed out at the regional authority, accusing it of acting too slowly, while the city’s Chamber of Commerce said it was taking legal action to seek damages after the sever drop in commercial activity.
Workers operate a mobile crane to remove dead fish floating on the Xiria River, near Volos, Greece, Aug. 28, 2024.
SAKIS MITROLIDIS/AFP/Getty
“Businesses along the seafront, particularly in the catering industry, are now suspending operations,” the chamber said in a statement. “A strong stench along the seafront is repulsive to both residents and visitors … delivering a severe blow to tourism in Volos.”
Namibia has authorized the culling of hundreds of animals, including elephants, as part of a plan to feed people in the drought-stricken southern African country.
About half of Namibia’s population is experiencing acute food insecurity, the United Nations said last month. Meat from the 723 culled animals will be distributed as part of a drought relief program, the country’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism announced Monday.
“This exercise [is] necessary and is in line with our constitutional mandate where our natural resources are used for the benefit of Namibian citizens,” the ministry said.
Namibia has experienced a 53% decline in cereal production and a nearly 70% reduction in dam water levels amid the drought, the United Nations said. A national state of emergency was declared on May 22.
Professional hunters and safari outfitters will handle the culling, which is being limited to national parks and communal areas with sustainable game numbers. The plan is to cull 30 hippos, 60 buffalos, 50 impalas, 100 blue wildebeest, 300 zebras, 83 elephants and 100 elands.
Officials said the culling will provide meat for people while also reducing the negative impact of drought on the conservation of wild animals, which are competing for grazing areas and water as the drought continues.
Other countries, such as Australia, have previously permitted the culling of animals. The country has approved the deaths of thousands of kangaroos over the years, with officials warning in the past that there wasn’t enough food available to support the population of kangaroos.
The severe drought in Namibia was brought on by El Niño, a natural climate phenomenon that occurs when the Pacific Ocean experiences warmer-than-average surface temperatures. Climate change can exacerbate El Niño, leading to new record temperatures, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Increasing temperatures and inconsistent rainfall are two of the biggest threats to natural resources in Namibia, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Wildlife with access to fewer resources can also push into human settlements.
Namibia, in its release about the culling plan, noted that the National Conference on Human Wildlife Conflict Management in 2023 determined elephant numbers should be reduced as a way to cut down on human-wildlife conflict.
“With the severe drought situation in the country, conflicts are expected to increase if no interventions are made,” officials said.
Aliza Chasan is a Digital Content Producer for “60 Minutes” and CBSNews.com. She has previously written for outlets including PIX11 News, The New York Daily News, Inside Edition and DNAinfo. Aliza covers trending news, often focusing on crime and politics.
Tropical depression Debby has the potential to be a “drought buster” for the D.C. region, but that will depend on the intensity, duration and location of the rainfall expected.
Tropical Depression Debby has the potential to be a “drought buster” for the D.C. region, but that will depend on the intensity, duration and location of the rainfall expected.
That’s according to Michael Nardolilli, executive director of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin.
Nardolilli told WTOP the region’s been stressed this summer: “Before this recent rain, 57% of the Potomac Basin was experiencing extreme drought conditions, while 19% were experiencing severe drought conditions.”
Ahead of Friday, recent rains had put a slight dent in drought conditions. The ICPRB started conducting daily drought monitoring “when the flow of the Potomac River at Point of Rocks dropped below 2,000 cubic feet per second.”
Nardolilli said that in the past two days, the ICPRB was pleased to see “that number now is 5,000 cubic feet per second and it is expected to rise,” so the ICPRB has suspended daily drought monitoring.
On July 29, the Drought Coordination Committee at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments declared a drought watch, urging the nearly 6 million residents in the metropolitan Washington region to voluntarily conserve water.
“That was a real big step for the Council of Governments because that was the first drought watch that they’ve issued since 2010,” Nardolilli said.
Lisa Ragain, principal water resources planner with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, said while Tropical Depression Debby might help alleviate drought conditions when it comes to the region’s water supply, don’t expect an immediate lifting of the drought watch from MWCOG.
That’s because seeing a “recharging” of the region’s groundwater supply — when rainwater seeps into the aquifer — won’t happen overnight, she said. In communities such as Loudon and Fauquier counties, they rely more on groundwater and that groundwater recharge takes a while, according to Ragain.
Ragain said once Debby rolls out of the area, MWCOG’s committee on drought coordination will regroup and look at conditions.
The drought watch recommendations, which urge regular conservation of water, are something she’s lived with since she was a child. She grew up on the West Coast and said, “I have all my drought habits … turning off your water when you brush your teeth, don’t let the water run when you wash your dishes, shorter showers, that whole thing.”
“The severity of the rain, getting it all at once is not what you want,” he said. “You want a slow, steady rain over a long period of time for it to seep into the soil.”
In situations where there are intense storms, after drought conditions, “The fact that it runs off doesn’t help the farmers at all,” said Nardolilli.
He said historically, some of the worst droughts in the Potomac River Basin occurred in 1930 and again in 1966.
In the 1966 drought, Nardolilli said it was “broken” after severe rain storms rolled into the region in September of that year.
While that was good in terms of the water supply, Nardolilli said there was also large scale runoff: “There were cars floating down Four Mile Run in Arlington, for example.”
So, he said of much-needed rain, “You get it all at once, and it really doesn’t help if it all runs off without seeping into the ground.”
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By the time I arrive in Lezay my clothes are damp with sweat, my head foggy. I find hundreds of Les Soulèvements de la Terre’s supporters in a field on the outskirts of town in a victorious, yet cautious, mood. People carry flags that read: “We are all Les Soulèvements de la Terre.” The police are there but keeping their distance. A helicopter circles above.
Lazare emerges from the crowd, clutching a half-eaten sandwich and wearing bright silver shoes. When we finally find a patch of field that is not carpeted in sheep droppings, she kneels in the grass and in her soft, methodical way explains why it’s time for the climate movement to take more radical action.
Part of Lazare’s job is to soften Les Soulèvements de la Terre’s image. For years she appeared in French magazines as the new face of radical eco-activism, but she became Les Soulèvements de la Terre’s official spokesperson only when the group faced the prospect of being shut down. Now Lazare is among a small band of people who deliver speeches at protests or explain their motives to the press. “The government tries to say Les Soulèvements de la Terre is one of these dangerous ultraleft groups,” she says, twisting blades of grass between her fingers as she talks. They want the public to picture violent men, she explains. Lazare knows she does not conform to that image. And neither do her supporters, lying in the grass with their bikes, behind us. There are children, gray-haired hippies, a contingent of tractors, dogs, and even a donkey. A big white horse pulls a cart in circles, a speaker inside vibrating with music.
Later that day, I join around 700 Les Soulèvements de la Terre supporters cycling along quiet country roads, weaving our way past sunflower fields, wind turbines, and rivers that have run dry. Each time we reach a small town, the streets are lined with people, sometimes hundreds, clapping and cheering as we pass. Owners of small farms open their gates, welcoming us in to refill our water bottles and use the facilities. There is a DJ on wheels who blasts The Prodigy as we roll toward the next town. Three months later, in November 2023, that same top court in France overturns the government’s decision to ban the group, ruling it disproportionate.
That is a brief respite in the legal onslaught facing the movement, as European authorities formulate their response to the wave of sabotage sweeping the continent. In November, Lazare and a fellow Les Soulèvements de la Terre spokesperson are due in court for refusing to attend a parliamentary inquiry into the 2023 protests, including the Battle of Saint-Soline. They face two years in jail. The same month, Patrick Hart comes before a tribunal to decide whether he should lose his medical license as a result of his activism. Last year in Germany, Letzte Generation’s members were subjected to police raids, and in May 2024, the public prosecutor’s office in the German town of Neuruppin charged five of the group’s members with forming a criminal organization, citing in part the 2022 pipeline protests. Werner hasn’t been charged, surprisingly, but he hopes a public trial of his fellow activists will spark a countrywide reckoning over Germany’s use of fossil fuels and finally give his sabotage of pipelines the impact he wanted all along.
As their members are dragged through the courts, it seems more important than ever for these groups to have public support. That’s why the people lining the small country roads are so important to Lazare. She needs their blessing. “Radicalism must always be supported by a mass of people to be victorious,” she tells me. Sabotage needs to inspire copycats, which means it needs to shake off its reputation as a sinister, criminal act.
After the first long day of cycling, we pull into a field. Activists have set up a campsite with a bar, a pay-what-you-can canteen, a stage for climate lectures, and live music. There is the accordion again, that festival atmosphere. “I think it’s important for activists to go sometimes by night, masked, and commit sabotage,” says Lazare. “But in Les Soulèvements de la Terre, we want to do this in the middle of the day, not anonymously, but collectively, with joy and music.” Joyfulness, she says, is key to the whole idea.
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It was questionable how much credit they could take. They had arrived in Texas right at the start of the rainy season, and the precipitation that fell before the experiment had been forecast by the US Weather Bureau. As for Powers’ notion that rain came after battles—well, battles tended to start in dry weather, so it was only the natural cycle of things that wet weather often followed.
Despite skepticism from serious scientists and ridicule in parts of the press, the Midland experiments lit the fuse on half a century of rainmaking pseudoscience. The Weather Bureau soon found itself in a running media battle to debunk the efforts of the self-styled rainmakers who started operating across the country.
The most famous of these was Charles Hatfield, nicknamed either the Moisture Accelerator or the Ponzi of the Skies, depending on whom you asked. Originally a sewing machine salesman from California, he reinvented himself as a weather guru and struck dozens of deals with desperate towns. When he arrived in a new place, he’d build a series of wooden towers, mix up a secret blend of 23 cask-aged chemicals, and pour it into vats on top of the towers to evaporate into the sky. Hatfield’s methods had the air of witchcraft, but he had a knack for playing the odds. In Los Angeles, he promised 18 inches of rain between mid-December and late April, when historical rainfall records suggested a 50 percent chance of that happening anyway.
While these showmen and charlatans were filling their pocketbooks, scientists were slowly figuring out what actually made it rain—something called cloud condensation nuclei. Even on a clear day, the skies are packed with particles, some no bigger than a grain of pollen or a viral strand. “Every cloud droplet in Earth’s atmosphere formed on a preexisting aerosol particle,” one cloud physicist told me. The types of particles vary by place. In the UAE, they include a complex mix of sulfate-rich sands from the desert of the Empty Quarter, salt spray from the Persian Gulf, chemicals from the oil refineries that dot the region, and organic materials from as far afield as India. Without them there would be no clouds at all—no rain, no snow, no hail.
A lot of raindrops start as airborne ice crystals, which melt as they fall to earth. But without cloud condensation nuclei, even ice crystals won’t form until the temperature dips below –40 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, the atmosphere is full of pockets of supercooled liquid water that’s below freezing but hasn’t actually turned into ice.
In 1938, a meteorologist in Germany suggested that seeding these areas of frigid water with artificial cloud condensation nuclei might encourage the formation of ice crystals, which would quickly grow large enough to fall, first as snowflakes, then as rain. After the Second World War, American scientists at General Electric seized on the idea. One group, led by chemists Vincent Schaefer and Irving Langmuir, found that solid carbon dioxide, also known as dry ice, would do the trick. When Schaefer dropped grains of dry ice into the home freezer he’d been using as a makeshift cloud chamber, he discovered that water readily freezes around the particles’ crystalline structure. When he witnessed the effect a week later, Langmuir jotted down three words in his notebook: “Control of Weather.” Within a few months, they were dropping dry-ice pellets from planes over Mount Greylock in Western Massachusetts, creating a 3-mile-long streak of ice and snow.
For the first time this year, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek’s declared a drought emergency. This one affects Jefferson County.
The governor says the effects of a multi-year drought have yet to improve throughout the Deschutes River Basin, and rainfall has been below average in Jefferson County since 2018.
Washington State declared parts of its region in drought. In mid June, Washington declared drought and has a drought definition written into the state statute.
This week, Karin Bombacco with the Washington State Climatologist’s office, talked about the drought across the region.
“This year, they were really looking at the lack of snow throughout Washington, and whether there are expected to be hardships due to that lack of water…Jefferson County in Oregon requested a declaration in April. It works a little bit different in Oregon where counties request to the state,” she said.
The forecast for water supply is not expected to improve. Droughts have significant impacts, on farming, ranching, recreation, tourism, natural resources, drinking water, fish, and wildlife.
On Monday, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality declared the entire state was in a drought watch, and several counties in Northern Virginia and the Shenandoah area were under a drought warning.
Most of Northern Virginia is now under a drought warning after several weeks of heat and little rainfall. Officials are urging residents from unnecessarily using water.
On Monday, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality declared the entire state was in a drought watch, and several counties in Northern Virginia and the Shenandoah area were under a drought warning.
In the D.C. area, Loudoun, Prince William, Arlington and Fairfax counties were all affected by the warning, which “indicates a significant drought is imminent,” according to a news release from the department.
The heat wave and cloudless days of sunshine have really dried out the soil, according to Brendon Rubin-Oster, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service.
“In the recent weeks, we’ve definitely not seen as much rain as we’d like to see,” Rubin-Oster told WTOP.
He added, “That sun’s pounding down on the ground soils — that definitely dries things out even more readily.”
Summer droughts can often end quickly with frequent thunderstorms, like what the D.C. area may see Wednesday and over the weekend.
But Rubin-Oster said the region will likely need several days of rain to get out of this drought.
“A lot of the rain ends up as runoff because it comes down too quickly at once.”
Rubin-Oster said that forecasters will become more concerned about drought conditions if they stretch into the drier fall months when we see fewer thunderstorms.
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality encouraged Virginians to minimize their water use, keep an eye on drought conditions and detect and repair leaks in its Monday release.
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Millions of people in Colombia’s capital were forced to start rationing water Thursday as Bogota’s main reservoirs hit critically low water levels. Aerial footage posted by the city’s mayor showed low levels in two reservoirs that supply 70% of the capital’s water.
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FRESNO — Much has been said of California’s two consecutive years of above-average precipitation but there are still some grumblings in California about the water supply.
In the Central Valley, some districts say their groundwater recharge projects are getting squeezed as they await word on what kind of water deliveries they’ll get this year.
“This is our main canal,” explained Manny Amorelli. “This runs the length of our district, kind of like the highway, the main highway of the district.”
Amorelli is general manager of the James Irrigation District in Fresno County.
“Our sub-basin last year we recharged over 500,000 acre-feet of water,” Amorelli said.
The follow-up to last year’s big payoff has been a different story.
“Normally this would be all filled. In a wet year we’d have this whole thing filled with water,” he said, pointing to the drying ponds.
The problem, according to Amorelli, is the district’s current allocation from the Central Valley Project and the Bureau of Reclamations. Initially, just 15 percent of their contract, it has since been bumped up to 35 percent.
“It’s like every year we have to wait and hold our breath and see how much of that we’re going to get.” Amorelli said.
“Right here we have a barley that we planted last fall,” said Joaquin Contente. “Across the street we’ve got some winter forage.”
Farmers like Contente are also left guessing. If the allocations are low he would normally draw from underground.
“That’s when we start turning on the pumps to try to get as much water as you can,” Contente said. “But now, with SGMA, you can’t do that so you’ve got a depend on surface water.”
SGMA is the state’s new groundwater sustainability plan. For Amorelli, this makes for something resembling a Catch-22. In order to keep recharging his groundwater he relies partly on the surface-water allocation.
“Our contract amount is 35,000 acre-feet,”Amorelli explained. “If we get 75 percent of that we would have spare water to stick in the ground.”
The bureau, which had not responded to a comment request before publication, does adjust its allocations based on things like number of storm systems and the hope is that the figures will jump again.
“I’m hopeful,” Amorelli said. “The bureau, from what I understand, may or may not do a revised number.”
“Most of these reservoirs are almost full,” Contente added. “So that’s a good sign.”
For the moment, the groundwater pools sit dry, even after another healthy year of precipitation.
“These things should be full,” Amorelli said of the ponds.
Wilson Walker joined KPIX 5 in July 2007. After 10 years producing newscasts, Wilson became a Multimedia Journalist (MMJ) in 2012, meaning he shoots, writes and edits all of his own stories.
