When a "Drought" NOT a Drought?

This year, the Washington State Department of Ecology and others (e.g., the Seattle Times) are claiming we are in a drought emergency.

In several of my recent blogs, I explained why I think they are wrong. 

Precipitation has been above normal, reservoirs are full, substantial snowpack is in place (about 50% of normal), soils are moist, current forecasts are for substantial spring precipitation, and there is little evidence of any impacts of the low snowpack on water supplies or agriculture.  

Remember, a key aspect of a drought is that it has to have substantial IMPACTS. 

To quote the drought.gov website:

A drought is a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall or, generally, a severe deficiency of moisture, resulting in water shortages for people, agriculture, and ecosystems.

Droughts need to have impacts, and the negative impacts of the high precipitation/low snowpack situation this year will be minimal 

It would be interesting to evaluate the track record of drought advocates in government, the media, and climate advocacy groups.

So let's do it!

Consider last year (2025).

The Department of Ecology put out a drought EMERGENCY declaration in early April and expanded it greatly on June 5, 2025:

The Seattle Times and other media outlets had several drought stories, becoming increasingly ominous over time, about the serious drought threat (see sample below).

In my blog last year, I argued against the extreme drought mania, providing the actual water supply numbers, which suggest little or no impact.   But the dire warnings continued and amplified.

A year later, we know the truth:  there was no problem with water supply for the population, and Washington Agriculture flourished.    The dire warnings were totally wrong.

Seattle's water supply?  Never got close to low-reservoir conditions in 2025 (dashed lines below).  Other major water supply reservoirs (e.g., Tacoma, Everett, etc) were similar.

How about the 2025 crops?

Apples?  There was a RECORD-EQUALING harvest of excellent quality (color and size).

Cherries? A strong, bumper crop with some of the best quality in years, with a long season.  Excellent quality and big fruit.

Potatoes?  The 2025 crop was characterized by high quality and excellent growing conditions, with a similar yield to 2024.   Chris Voigt, Executive Director at the Washington Potato Commission, noted that 2025 lacked extended periods of heat and overall had ideal weather conditions for potatoes.  

Wheat? USDA’s Small Grains Summary, Washington, noted that the state produced 141.5 million bushels of wheat in 2025, which is down 1.5% from 2024, but still 12% above the five-year average. 

Raspberries?   Last year’s total production exceeded 60 million pounds, which will be the highest harvest since 2018.  

I could discuss more crops, but you get the message.  2025 was an excellent year for Washington State agriculture, with little evidence of drought impacts.

Did drought greatly reduce Northwest hydropower output (see U.S. government analysis below)?

 Nope.   According to Federal data, NW hydropower was close to the long-term average, with a nice recovery from 2025.

The bottom line in all this is that there was little evidence of drought over our region based on impacts, and such impacts are required to call a situation a drought.

Some locations are fortunate to receive more precipitation than is required, and we are lucky to be in such a place.

For me, a more interesting question is why Washington State officials don't understand this basic fact?  

And why are Seattle Times reporters not completing the simple research that indicates that last year's drought warnings were without any basis in terms of impacts?

I bet you guess why such deceptive, scary language is being used by those responsible for informing us.  

But whatever the motive, it is very harmful, resulting in unnecessary worry and leading to bad decisions (like the wasteful, corrupting Washington State CCA, which preferentially hurts low-income people while enriching special interest groups).

Is a Super El Nino Coming?

The media is going wild about the potential for a SUPER El Nino developing this year.

An El Niño of potentially unequaled strength with profound consequences for humanity.

El Nino 101

As a reminder, El Niño and its close counterpart, La Niña, are associated with sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, specifically in the area known as the Niño 3.4 region (see map below).

Why do we care about the surface temperatures of the central tropical Pacific?   

Because it reveals the state of an important natural atmospheric/ocean oscillation:  ENSO, the El Niño Southern Oscillation, in which warm ocean surface water sloshed back and forth over 4-7 year periods (see below).

The warm water enhances cumulus and thunderstorm activity above, which in turn influences the weather of the entire planet (see below).

Some terminology:

A weak El Niño has the Niño 3.4 area .5-1 °C above normal

A moderate El Niño has the Niño 3.4 area 1-1.5 °C above normal

A strong El Niño has the Niño 3.4 area 1.5-2 °C above normal

A super El Niño has the Niño 3.4 area exceeding 2°C above normal

Predicting El Niño is important because it has a significant impact on the meteorology of the U.S. West Coast and offers the only reliable source of forecasting skill for extended period predictions.

There is little correlation between El Niño and our summer weather, but El Niño winters in the Northwest tend to be warmer than normal with lesser snowfal.

There is a problem we face right now in predicting the El Niño situation next winter:  the El Niño Spring Forecast Barrier.  

A reason why the media needs to be very careful about over hyping things right now.

It turns out that El Niño forecasts made in late winter and spring are often unskillful, while predictions made after July are much better. 

 Furthermore, statistical prediction models are generally less skillful than dynamical models that actually simulate ocean and atmospheric conditions (see below).

With all that said, what do the latest El Niño forecasts indicate?  Is there an intense SUPER El Niño in our future?    The predictions are below for a wide range of models.

All models indicate that La Niña (cooler than normal tropical temperatures) will soon be over.

The statistical models (green lines) are predicting a weak El Niño by this fall, while the more skillful dynamical models are going for a weak to moderate El Niño.    Few are predicting a Super El Niño.

There is one modeling system that is going for a "Super" El Nino, the European Center's SEAS5 model (below).  It is the source of many of the breathless headlines in the media.

The bottom line?

We are certainly moving towards El Niño conditions, but I would be careful about assuming that the Super El Niño prediction of the European Center is correct, due to the spring forecast barrier and the larger differences between other modeling system forecasts.

Wet, Cool Weather Ahead for Much of the West Coast

 Generally, April is a month of rapid drying over much of California....but not this year.

A pattern that brings a series of low-pressure systems to California will be the rule for much of the month.

Let me illustrate by showing you a series of upper-level (500 hPa pressure, about 18,000 ft) maps.  Blue colors indicate much lower than normal heights/pressures.

Thursday evening, a strong low center will be parked off California, bringing a moisture flow into central and southern California

Saturday will bring a stronger low to Northern California.

This pattern will not go away.....a week later (Sunday, April 19) another strong low will be offshore the CA/OR border.

This series of troughs/low-pressure systems will bring bountiful precipitation to the West Coast.

Over the next ten days, substantial precipitation is expected over California and southern Oregon (see below), locations where the snowfall has been below normal.    This precipitation will top off reservoirs and ensure good river flow this month.

The predicted total snowfall for the same period is substantial, with large amounts in the Sierra Nevada.

One should note that the substantial precipitation this winter has filled California reservoirs, many approaching full (see below).  Right now, CA reservoirs are about 120% of normal. 

As noted earlier, the snowpack is substantially below normal (see below), savaged by the recent warm/dry period.  Thankfully, California has a massive water storage capacity.

The above-normal water storage in reservoirs will buffer the low snowpack, while rain this month will moisten soils going into the dry season.  This is important considering the drying effects of the recent warm/dry weather over California.

Major Global Cooling of the Past Two Years and the Big U.S. Heatwave Last Month. Climate Change?

One of the most effective and accurate ways to monitor the slow warming of our planet from increasing greenhouse gases is to use satellites that measure the radiation emitted by our atmosphere.  

One of the leading groups in using this technology is at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, led by Drs. Roy Spencer and John Christy.  

Below is their plot of lower atmosphere temperatures based on satellite data since 1979.

You will notice a slow rise in temperature over the past 50 years, by about 1°C.  This is probably mainly due to increasing CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

You will also notice a lot of ups and downs on shorter time scales, which are mainly due to natural variability.  Of particular note is the big spike in warming in 2023, followed by rapid COOLING during the past few years.

The media and climate activists made a lot of false claims that the sudden warming in 2023 was due to human-emitted greenhouse gases, but have been very silent about the recent cooling.

Clearly, the cooling is not consistent with their "messaging" about global warming.

The truth was that the huge 2022 Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption ejected massive amounts of water vapor (a VERY potent greenhouse gas) into the stratosphere, which led to the spike in warming.  

The rapid warming had nothing to do with human emissions, with the global temperatures naturally declining as the excessive water vapor was slowly removed from the system.

Recently, the media and advocacy groups have been going bonkers about the recent March heatwave over the U.S., claiming with great certainty that it is the result of human-caused global warming.

These claims are easily disproved:  the heat wave was highly localized and some nearby areas were much colder than normal.

I can demonstrate this by showing you the temperature differences from normal (climatology) over the entire planet for March using the satellite observations noted above.  Red, orange, and yellow indicate warmer than normal temperatures, and blue indicates colder-than-normal temperatures (see below).

You can see the large area of warmer than normal temperatures centered over the western U.S.  No doubt about it.  But temperatures even MORE extreme on the COLD side to the north, from Alaska through northern Canada. 

Global warming advocates are often talking about the Arctic warming due to climate change, with sad stories about dying polar bears.   But in this case, a broad swath fo the Arctic was much colder than normal.

In the tropics temperatures were near normal. 

It is easy to determine the real cause of the temperature anomalies:  a highly perturbed upper-level flow pattern (see 500 hPa pressure level, about 18,000 ft, below).     Red indicates ridging or enhanced high pressure aloft, blue indicates troughing (ehanced low pressure).

The flow pattern was highly perturbed over North America.  Research is very clear that global warming does not contribute to such a pattern. 

 

Let me end with the Golden Rule of Climate Change.

The more extreme the anomaly from climatology (the average climate), the LESS likely it is that human-forced global warming is the cause.  This was true of the warming in 2023 and is true for last month's warm event over the western U.S.

Human-caused global warming is real, but it is slow and modest in magnitude, and global in scope.

FINALLY, Some Warm Weather

After a cool, wet March, we are finally getting some warm spring days.   

 Warm and dry enough so that you will be comfortable without a jacket.    Highs reaching the upper 60s and some sun. 

Perfect weather for that bike ride, hike, gardening, or simply a pleasant talk.

The National Weather Service National Blend of Models (their most skillful product) is going for 62F on Saturday, 65F on Sunday, and nearly 70F on Sunday in Seattle, before cooling down on Tuesday.

Eastern Washington will be considerably warmer, reaching nearly 80F in the Tri-Cities on Monday.

To provide more detail, here are forecast temperatures for 5 PM Sunday afternoon from the UW high-resolution model. 

Upper 60s and 70s from southern Puget Sound to Portland, and also warm in the lower Columbia Valley

By Monday afternoon at the same time, western Washington and Oregon have cooled a bit, while the Columbia Valley has warmed.

All this warming is associated with a transient upper-level ridge of high pressure that will build over the area this week (see below, for 500 hPa...about 18,000 ft, red indicates high pressure).

By Tuesday morning, the high pressure retreats westward and a trough of lower pressure (blue colors) passes to our north, bringing the cool down.

Enjoy.

Seattle Times Provides Deceptive and False Information on Washington State Drought

Truth should be important to the Seattle Times. 

Professional integrity and honesty should be a priority.  

Providing the public with accurate information on an important public issue should be paramount.

But when it comes to issues dealing with climate, the Seattle Times has descended into advocacy, hype, and exaggeration, unsupported by facts and actual science.   

Articles written by the Seattle Times Climate Lab, which receives financial support from climate advocacy groups, are the most concerning, as illustrated by the deceptive, unfactual article published yesterday.

The article, How bad is Washington's summer drought going to get?, starts with a large picture of a major reservoir (Lake Keechelus)--see below

The picture shows a completely empty lake, and the legend describes a "depleted Lake Keechelus" and that this total lack of water is a "familiar scene."

Totally deceptive and wrong.  The truth is that the lake is nearly full, as shown by an image total from a WSDOT cam:

Don't believe your eyes?   The official measurements of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation indicate the lake was 95% full two days ago (it is now 96%):

Still not convinced?  Below is a plot of this year's lake level (blue line) versus normal (red line).   

Lake levels are now WAY above normal....in fact, exceeding the normal maximum levels in early summer.  So high, reservoir managers reduced the level a bit to avoid flooding.

So the headline claim of the article was wrong...and they had to know this.

I am hardly warming up regarding the ST tall tales.   Much of the article is factually wrong.

For example, it tells us:

"This summer is expected to be especially hot and dry, too, Mellor pointed out. El Niño conditions are moving in from the tropics."

This is nonsensical.   We are still in a La Niña (see below), and the transition to Neutral and then El Niño conditions will only occur during the summer.

Blue colors indicate temperatures below normal

Even more important, Northwest summer precipitation has very little correlation with El Niño and La Niña--even if it were in place.   

This figure from the NOAA Climate Prediction Center, which shows the precipitation anomalies from normal for an El Niño summer, shows this clearly.

Don't believe NOAA and only trust online AI?  Here is what Gemini gave me:

Key Correlations & Current Trends

• Weak Summer Link: Meteorologists note that El Niño does not have as significant an impact on the region in the spring and summer as it does in winter.

Lack of water for hydropower?

Then the article warns about the lack of water for Seattle hydropower, and particularly the Ross Reservoir.   Turns out both rainfall and snowfall have been relatively healthy in the North Cascades this winter, and the reservoir level is now much higher than the previous year (see below).  I note that the Ross Reservoir almost filled last year (see below).

Seattle's power generation will have sufficient water!

Perhaps the writer of the Seattle Times scare piece should have checked the best long-term forecasts.   

Here is the latest prediction of summer precipitation from the best (European Center).  WETTER THAN NORMAL OVER WESTERN AND FAR EASTERN Washington.  Normal for the rest.

The Seattle Times is failing our community, providing demonstrably false information regarding climate change.   Hyping and exaggerating climate threats.  

Providing such wrong information is hurting our community, resulting in very poor decision-making, including the waste of billions of dollars (e.g., the CCA).