Washington State Agricuture is Doing Well in 2026

For much of this year, some in the media and online have warned about drought and heat, predicting serious negative consequences for Washington State agriculture.     

The Drought Monitor website, often quoted in the press, has drought, some extreme, over eastern Washington.  The site warns of substantial negative impacts!

The headlines in many outlets have been apocalyptic; here are just a few:

The truth is very different from these scary predictions.  

There was sufficient water for agriculture this year.   

Harvests are near normal and in some cases above normal.

Let me prove this to you.

Washington wheat yields in 2026 will be 20% ABOVE normal.  

The barley harvest?   97% of normal this year!

The very important apple crop?  Very good news!

It is estimated to be down only 2% from last year's record-breaking harvest (see below), and forecasts call for exceptional quality.  I look forward to the crunch of a good apple!

Cherries?

They suffered a bit from a spring cold wave, resulting in a decline of around 15% in volume.  However, the industry reports that fruit quality, size, and flavor have remained exceptional throughout the season, and prices have remained favorable for the growers.

I would go on, but you get the message: this year has been a very decent year for Washington State agriculture. The scary claims of major drought, wildfire, lack of snowpack, and global warming impacts were clearly not true.

One reason eastern Washington agriculture did so well was that there was sufficient water.

The water levels behind the Columbia's Grand Coulee Dam this year (blue line) were close to normal (red line).

Elevation Level Behind the Grand Coulee Dam

The Yakima Reservoir started well above normal in spring and ended ABOVE last year and modestly below normal.   Sufficient water for normal agricultural operations in the Yakima Valley.

Heavy rains and relatively cool temperatures of the past two weeks have caused surface soils and fuel moisture levels to increase greatly over the lowlands of eastern Washington. (See example below; the thick red line is observed, the gray area is the normal range.)

The bottom line is that Washington State agriculture is in very good shape this year, with the Chicken Little predictions proving to be false.

 

The Northwest Wildfire Season Was Dominated by Grass and Range Fires. That Has Implications.

With the recent rain and cooling, the wildfire season is essentially over for the Pacific Northwest.  

In terms of acreage, 2026 has been one of the most prolific wildfire years of the past decades. 

Considering the past 50 years,  it was the leading wildfire year in Oregon and number two or three in Washington State.  Most of the major fires were started by a limited number of lightning "storms".

But now, the key point.   

The great majority of the wildfire acreage occurred in grass and range vegetation, not forests.

Importantly, grass and range fires have little to do with global warming and climate change.

To demonstrate all of this, let's begin by examining the areas burned  this year, using graphics from the U.S. Forest Service (below, pink shading shows the fire area this year )

Massive fire area in Oregon.  Nearly all in the grassy/range areas of the eastern side of the state.  

In contrast, essentially no fires over western Oregon, west of the Cascade crest.  One of the lowest wildfire years on record for the western side of the state.

Like Oregon, western Washington has also escaped wildfires this year (see below), and for the same reason:  a lack of strong easterly wind events.  Most of the wildfire area in Washington State has been in grass and range vegetation, but some of the fires have extended into trees on the slopes of local terrain (e.g., the Little Giant Fire)

What about the origins of the fires in the two states?   

According to the U.S. Forest Service, the vast majority of fires were ignited by humans (e.g., arson, power lines, debris burning).  The major acreage fires were nearly all started by lightning.

By simple inspection of the graphics, it is clear that grass/range vegetation, not trees, has dominated the 2026 fires in the Pacific Northwest.   

Asking various AI systems to compare the satellite-based fire areas to satellite-based land use provides similar answers. In Oregon, the dominance of light vegetation is overwhelming (see below), with three-quarters of the fires in grass and brush.  For Washington State, they estimate about 60% coverage by light vegetation.

Examining the fires manually, looking at BOTH satellite assets and surface imagery, it is apparent that the satellite approach underplays the availability and importance of light vegetation.  To illustrate, below is an image from a "forest" area within the very large Sinlahekin fire of north-central Washington.

 

There may be some trees, but grasses and low shrubs dominate. I have looked at dozens of other areas in both states, with similar results.  

Based on my review, I would suggest that at least 80% of the Oregon wildfire area this summer was in light vegetation and at least 70%  of the fire area in Washington.

Thus, this year was mainly a problem of flammable light fuels that dry quickly (hours to days) and are always dry enough to burn by July in our region.

Modest global warming over time was not a factor in the flammable conditions at the start of summer.

Furthermore,  our region has been invaded by non-native, highly flammable grasses and light shrubs.  These are human-forced vegetation changes that greatly enhance fire potential.

And with decades of fire suppression, our forests have become unusually dense and full of debris, and thus highly vulnerable to wildfires

In addition, the region has extperience downward trend in lightning.  So global warming is not forcing more lightning ignitions.

The bottom line is that human-forced global warming had very, very little to do with the major Northwest fires this summer, and those claiming a connection are providing problematic information to the public.