Oregon farms struggle through a prolonged drought. (Photo courtesy of Yadira Lopez/Malheur Enterprise)
Nearly 80% of the Northwest is in a drought this summer, with more than half in a severe or extreme drought, according to a July analysis and September data from the U.S. Drought Monitor at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That’s due in large part to a lack of spring rain. Between April and August, Oregon had its fourth-driest period since record keeping began in 1895, according to Larry O’Neill, Oregon’s state climatologist and an associate professor at Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences.
“We got about half of our usual precipitation during that time,” he said.
Despite a wet winter and solid snowpack filling water reservoirs, “spring precipitation is quite important for a lot of the state, and especially for wildfire danger and for agricultural livestock production,” O’Neill said.
For most of Oregon and the Northwest, the spring and summer drought are characterized as short-term, but for some parts of the state, such as in Wallowa, Umatilla and parts of Baker counties, drought has been ongoing for more than a year.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has since July declared a drought emergency in Union and Baker counties, as well as Coos, Douglas, Lincoln, Morrow and Wheeler counties.
Such declarations allow the state’s Office of Emergency Management and the Agriculture and Water Resources departments to assist the counties by expediting review processes and reducing fees for emergency permits to draw more water or temporarily transfer a water right.
Streamflows in some Oregon rivers in the northwest and west of the state along the Coast Range reached record lows this summer. Across the Northwest, more than 50% of streamflow sites where NOAA measures levels are below normal, according to the NOAA scientists. O’Neill said scientists are keeping a close eye on the Siletz, Nehalem, Alsea and Chetco rivers in Oregon that rely heavily on spring rain for their flows, and which have measured low.
Across the West
Extreme drought is currently most prevalent in western Washington, northern Idaho, and western Montana and is widespread in Idaho and Washington, according to the scientists at NOAA.
In April, the Washington Department of Ecology issued a drought emergency for the Yakima Basin. By June 5, the department had issued a drought emergency for 19 watersheds covering much of the north and central parts of the state.
The situation across the west is “perilous” according to the NOAA scientists, because it was compounded by mega droughts in the early 2000s and in the early 2020s. But conditions in the Northwest at least are not nearly as bad as they were in 2021.
“Current drought coverage and intensity pales in comparison to peak drought conditions in the early 2020s,” analysts wrote.
In July 2021, nearly 60% of the West was in an extreme or exceptional drought. About 13% of the Northwest today is currently in extreme or exceptional drought.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center currently forecasts equal chances of above and below precipitation for the winter in the Northwest, with a slight favorability that it could be above normal.
“We’re crossing our fingers, hoping for the rain to come,” O’Neill said.
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