Remember Washington's Bad Drought? It's Still Out There
Under Friday's gun-metal skies, Seattleites might be forgiven for thinking the drought gripping Washington state for the past year is over.
It’s not.
The latest weekly map from the U.S. Drought Monitor (click here or see above) shows a little over two-thirds of the state is in the grip of extreme drought. And the rest of the state isn't much better.
That’s a little improvement over the state of things at the end of August, but the same as last week and worse than three months ago, despite recent rains.
El Nino conditions in the Pacific Ocean could bring warmer than normal conditions and subnormal precipitation for the rest of this fall and early winter, according to the state’s latest climate outlook.
The past year’s drought left our snowpack at record low levels, meaning there wasn’t enough water in rivers for fish this summer or for farmers’ crops. And of course, the drought left forests tinder dry and provoked a record year for wildfire.
Are we headed for another low-snow winter? Stay tuned.
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Gil Aegerter
Gil edits feature pieces and helps guide staff reporters through their stories. He previously served as interim digital director and online managing editor at KUOW. Before that he spent seven years with NBCNews.com, where he was variously a senior editor, editor-producer and features editor. He also worked 25 years as a newspaper editor in Anchorage, Alaska, San Diego, Wilmington, N.C., and Seattle. He also was a freelance researcher for NBC Olympics for the Games in Atlanta; Sydney, Australia; Salt Lake City; Athens; and Torino, Italy. He is a graduate of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, with a degree in photojournalism.
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