Persistent Drought and Above-Average Temperatures Expected in United States: NOAA

The Echo Reservoir in Utah is roughly at half capacity due to a severe ongoing drought that has affected the entire state. Allan Stein/Epoch Times

For the second year in a row, forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are predicting “prolonged, persistent drought” in the western United States as part of its Spring Outlook for the country.

Precipitation is “most likely” to remain below-average in the west, according to a NOAA news release published on March 17. For much of the United States stretching from the Desert Southwest to the East Coast and north through the Midwest to the Canadian border, NOAA is expecting above-average temperatures between April and June.

“Severe to exceptional drought has persisted in some areas of the West since the summer of 2020 and drought has expanded to the southern Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley,” Jon Gottschalck, chief, Operational Prediction Branch, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said in the news release.

“With nearly 60% of the continental U.S. experiencing minor to exceptional drought conditions, this is the largest drought coverage we’ve seen in the U.S. since 2013,” said Gottschalck.

The South Rockies and Southern Plains have the “greatest chances” of experiencing above-average temperatures during spring. Meanwhile, below-average temperatures are “most likely” in southeast Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, according to the report.

Above-average precipitation is likely to occur in portions of the Ohio Valley, Great Lakes, west coast of Alaska, and the mid-Atlantic, the report says, while some areas of the Central Great Basin, Southwest, Central and Southern Rockies, and Central and Southern Plains, eastward to the Central Gulf Coast, below-average precipitation is expected.

Food supply chains may get affected by the drought. In California, especially the Central Valley, three-year snow and rain levels will soon be hitting their lowest since 1922. There is 1.5 million acre feet less water in California than last year.

“It does make for some very difficult (crop) producer decisions as what to continue to grow and what to keep alive,” Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist, said at a press briefing.

In late February, the Bureau of Reclamation had announced that it won’t be able to provide some farmers with water from the Central Valley Project, one of the two large water systems in the state that supplies water to cities, farms, etc.

Farmers holding senior rights are usually entitled to at least 75 percent of their water allocations even during drought. But these commitments might not be met this year.

“It’s pretty certain that they’re not going to get their full 75% simply because we don’t have the water available,” Ernest Conant, Reclamation’s director of the California-Great Basin region, told The Associated Press. Farmers without senior rights won’t get any water they were allocated.

Last year’s drought had resulted in 395,100 acres of farmland in the state being idled according to a study by the University of California Merced. As a consequence, 8,745 agricultural jobs were lost, leading to losses to the tune of $1.2 billion.