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).
Everything is local. The snowpack in the Olympics is at about 42% of median. That is the summer water supply for most of us in Olympic Peninsula. Our reservoirs are not adequate for low snowpack conditions. Conserving is tough. Most don't water lawns, already have low-flow home devices, and the industrial users have been reducing use over the years. And there are more homes each year.
ReplyDeleteThe motive is obvious: Greater government control over the people.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly didn't feel like we were in a drought last year, and this excellent review confirms that we weren't, even though the state and the Seattle Times said we were. Its great to hear that our farmers had such a great year with their crops, and I hope they will be just as successful this year.
ReplyDeleteA. Local media has a bleak career path unless they can get a government job- eg all the reporters who are now the PR contacts for the utilities etc, B. The excess years of emergency powers for Covid taught government how easy it is to use emergency powers with no proof
ReplyDeleteRemember the sky is always falling to a portion of the population. With the impact of the Super El Nino, the impact will?
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see how this blog post and that of 4/1 are holding up around the end of August. I hope you’re right.
ReplyDeleteAsk those producers farming on the Roza Irrigation District!
ReplyDeleteAn excellent analysis on this subreddit
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/1sg3pfr/washington_declares_statewide_drought_emergency/
Seattle gets its water from three reservoirs: Tolt, Chester Morse, and Lake Youngs.
The Tolt contains 56,160 acre feet of water.
Chester Morse contains ~40,000 acre feet of water.
The Youngs contains 4,600 acre feet of water. source for the above: https://www.seattle.gov/documents/departments/spu/documents/plans/spufinal2019_wsp_volume1.pdf
Let's assume that your interpretation of Cliff's argument is correct and that all the water in those reservoirs(a combined 100,760 acre feet) is all we need.
Converting 100,760 acre feet into gallons gives us around 32.8 billion gallons of water. (1 acre foot approx 326k gallons)
Seattle consumes between 100-150 million gallons per day, depending on time of year. source: https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SPU/Services/Water/Current-Water-Supply-Graphs.pdf
Let's call it 125 million gallons per day that the city consumes.
The Tolt River's south fork flows about 65 cubic feet/second in the summer. source: https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/USGS-12148000/statistics/
This works out to ~486 gallons per second, or ~42 million gallons per day. But let's say water is hard to come by, so they've said fuck you to the fish and halved the flow to ~20 million gallons per day.
The Cedar River discharge rate(by the dam in Landsburg) is more irregular in the summer, varying between around 250 cfs and 500 cfs. Let's be extra charitable to Cliff and say it's only 150 cfs in a water-stressed year. source: https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/USGS-12117500/statistics/
That's about 1100 gallons per second, or about 95 million gallons per day to keep the river flowing at (what's probably less than) half flow.
So 125 + 20 + 95 brings us to 240 million gallons per day in usage, discounting any loss to leaks, evaporation, etc.
Seattle has about 33 billion gallons of water in the reservoirs and a consumption rate of 240 million gallons.
With the most conservative water usages estimates, Seattle has about 137.5 days of water with no recharge while halving the average flows of the Tolt and Cedar. This number is the absolute, most-generous maximum for how many days of water the city has.
If you revert water usage to more average summer figures, the consumption is around 350 million gallons per day, leaving Seattle with about 97 days of water. Remember, that's completely ignoring leaks, evaporation, etc.
The rains typically end late June and come back in mid October, which is about four months, or ~120 days, of mostly cloudless skies.
Is it making more sense now why the inflows from snowpack are critical? Without it, we would get through the summer by the skin of our teeth at best.
But wait, there's more.
I forgot to touch on how the outflows from the dams to the river are used to turn electrical turbines, with the two drinking water reservoir dams' turbine generating about 30MW of the system's overall ~2050MW. It's not much, but you also have to remember that 78% of the entire City Light power generation is done via hydro, so 78% of the city's entire power generation nodes will have to operate at reduced capacity to conserve what's left.
This analysis is missing some critical information. First, there IS some snowpack (and more is coming this week). That water will melt an become available. Second, the spring and summer are not completely dry...we will get substantial precipitation this month, May, June, and September. The bottom line: Seattle is in good shape for water this summer...
DeleteCDS is terrible condition (Climate Derangement Syndrome). I recovered about 20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteGarrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon effect has influenced our betters. The belief is that every year's precipitation shall be above average.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I hear someone who should know better use “normal” and “average” as synonyms (e.g. “Today’s high was five degrees above normal!”) I want to go find a brick wall to beat my head against.
DeleteJunior Water Right holders in the Yakima basin are forecasted to receive only 52% of their full entitlement this year. While storage is full, there is not enough snowpack to replenish what will be used for irrigation. https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/news-release/5315
ReplyDeleteWhat's your general take on low snowpack effects? That's definitely a thing, at least here in Oregon. Reservoir levels are one thing but low snowpack is another.
ReplyDelete