While the statewide snowpack sits above normal, a third straight year of snowpack drought hits the Central Cascades, with the Northern stretches of the Washington Mountain range to not be far behind.
According to NRCS data, the Skagit, Snoqualmie, Tolt Skykomish, Cedar, and Green River watersheds all are at or below 75 percent of the 30-year normal. In the Yakima Basin, it adds to back-to-back droughts in 2023 and 2024 leading to Bureau of Reclamation to forecast that junior water rights holders to prepare to receive less than half of their expected water supply.
“[It] is definitely very concerning for water supply come this late spring, summer, and early fall,” said Caroline Mellor, the drought coordinator for the Washington State Department of Ecology.
Mellor reports that six out of the last ten winters have received below-average snowpack. Like a water bottle, snow holds water in the mountains throughout the drier summer months, feeding vegetation, streams, rivers, and lakes. The earlier snow begins to melt, the shorter it lasts into the summer and there is a little time to make up before the traditional snowpack peak of April 1.
“The time for miracles is slowly creeping away,” Mellor said, “this is the time where we are immediately concerned for Yakima, but we are increasingly concerned for other parts of the state in terms of what these lower snowpack numbers in many parts of the North and Central Cascades will mean for snowpack for small agriculture, smaller utilities, as well as fish and fish health and water overall this season.”
Mellor points to conversations with the larger population centers in Everett, Tacoma, and Seattle where reservoirs and groundwater supply in aquifers are buffering some of the impacts of the several-year shortage of snow. Those are luxuries smaller communities in Western Washington may not have.
Mellor notes research that predicts forty percent of the winters by 2050 will have below-average snowpack.
“We should start thinking about it, not as an anomaly and not something different, but part of our regular cycles here in Washington and especially Western Washington.” Mellor said.
The University of Washington Climate Impact Group has studied a 25 percent decrease in snowpack since the middle of the 20th century.
“I think of that one as kind of the canary in the coal mine.” Guillaume Mauger, a member of the group and the director of the Washington State Climate Office at the University of Washington.
“The reason it’s an issue is we’ve essentially accounted for and allocated all the water that’s available,” Mauger said.
Water restrictions on the east side of the mountains are becoming more common, Mauger says. Historically, the region has needed to implement water restrictions once every seven years. Models from the Climate Impact Group forecast that to increase to two out of every three years.
“Water conservation has been a huge success story over the last 70 or so years,” Mauger said, " It’s made a huge difference actually, in the reliability of the water supply.
In the immediate term, Mellor reports Yakima Valley water users are already starting to prepare for changes. She reports some farmers are already choosing not to grow or to kill crops for the upcoming growing season, selling off or loaning their water rights to other farmers in hopes their crops are more fruitful.
“It’s still very concerning for impacts to large revenue crops coming out of Takima, that includes apples, cherries and of course hops and wine grapes, folks across the state and across the world depend on as part of their economy,” Mellor said.
The concerns extend to the fire season as well.
“We know our fuels have been dry here in Western Washington for a significant amount of time,” Seth Merritt, East County Fire & Rescue Battalion chief said.
It’s an unexpected analysis in the thick of Washington’s wet season but he and ECF&R Emergency Preparedness Coordinator and Wildfire Mitigation Specialist Catherine Robinson have seen for several years.
“In the homes, communities, and individuals I talk to they’re noticing it too.” Robinson said, " We don’t have to wait for another example of how bad these wildfires can be so people here are watching that and they have the same questions, the same concerns.”
Part of Robinson’s role, formed in the last two years as part of a county-wide strategy to mitigate the risk of wildfire, Robinson goes to homes to assess where they’re vulnerable to fire and what changes they can make. Those include installing fire-rated vents on homes, creating five feet of space around a home that does not have flammable material like mulch or fences, and changing roof tiles, to name a few.
“If we don’t mitigate together, we will burn together,” Robinson explained.
“Creating neighborhoods that are fuel breaks and not fuel sources involve removing those fuel sources to make the neighborhood a more fire-adapted community, that’s what we’re trying to create are fire-adapted communities,” Robinson added.
Merritt was once of several fire fighters from Washington to travel to Los Angeles in January to fight the fires that rampaged through urban areas. He and Robinson will tell you that those fires burned in a much different climate with much different fuels than Western Washington, however, how the fires tore through urban areas and neighborhoods existing in the Wildland-Urban Interface, is very much a potential in Western Washington as summers become warmer and drier.
“It’s a story that we need to keep telling to people here in Western Washington who don’t believe it can happen to them. I don’t believe people in some of those communities thought entire city blocks can burn in that regard.”
Homeowners wanting an assessment on the fire risk of their homes can schedule an appointment on the East Side Fire & Rescue page.
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