This article was originally published by Inside Climate News and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Officials were already sounding the alarm across the western United States in early March after a historically low snowfall winter, with snow gradually melting into the spring and summer, providing water to communities.
As we reported last week, high pressure brought early-season heat to the region and, in part due to climate change, broke temperature records in many states. Much of what little snow remains in some parts of the region is melting, experts say, raising concerns about water supplies as snow can evaporate or run off too early in the season.
Compounding the problem is that more than half of the western United States is currently in drought conditions, according to the federal Drought Monitoring System.
So how are Western countries trying to prevent the looming water crisis caused by this triple weather threat? Some regions are cracking down on local water use faster than ever before, disrupting many parts of daily life, from gardening habits to eating out. And bigger concerns are emerging as states compete for shared resources in the Colorado River, the region’s critical and increasingly impoverished watershed.
Many places around the world are facing similar dilemmas, a new study has found, as climate change “strengthens global patterns of more widespread and severe droughts.”
The Denver Water Commission last week announced a series of water restrictions aimed at reducing local usage by 20 percent. Restaurant owners are required to provide water only if customers request it. Customers of Denver Water, the city’s public water utility, will have to limit watering their lawns to two days a week, with further cuts possible depending on forecasts.
“The situation is quite serious,” utility spokesman Todd Hartman told NBC News. He added that Denver Water’s reservoirs are about 80 percent full, but the city cannot rely on snowfall as usual to replenish the reservoirs as water levels drop. “We’re in such a dire situation that in a couple of months we might be able to go back into public life and be told we’re limited to one day a week.”
In the northern Colorado city of Erie, residents and businesses were told in early March to shut off all irrigation until early April, with the goal of reducing usage by more than 45%. Authorities threatened to shut off the taps completely to violators.
Recreation is also difficult. More than half of the 120 ski areas in the western United States are either closed this year, scheduled to close early or not open at all, according to a Reuters analysis. In Wyoming, snow melted beneath skiers on the slopes at one location that remained open last week.
“It was a pool. I should have checked for floats, not lift tickets. It was pretty warm,” White Pine Ski Resort general manager Darran Adams told Wyoming Public Media.
Many parts of the region also continue to struggle with fire regulations as hot, dry conditions increase the risk of fire. Experts say spring rains could reduce fire risk, but climatologist John Abatzoglou told CBC that “everything is setting us up for a potentially nasty fire season across the West.”
My colleague Michael Cordas, who is based in Boulder, Colorado and has been reporting on wildfires and climate change for years, has seen these threats firsthand in past dry years. I asked him how water restrictions, drought and reduced snowpack could affect wildfire occurrence in the coming months. Here’s his inside scoop:
Most wildfires this time of year are fueled by grass, which firefighters call “one-hour fuel.” The grass dries to flame in 60 minutes, so it doesn’t need a winter-long drought to be ready to carry the flames. As one fire behavior analyst pointed out to me last week from his truck outside Denver, most grass is dead this time of year, drought or not, and it’s never been this dry and flammable.
However, grass that is normally still covered in snow can still burn early in the season if it is exposed to sun, wind, and dry air early in the season. Also, if there is little snow on the tall grass, the stems will not collapse under the weight of the snow and will remain upright like matchsticks, making it easier to ignite. Additionally, on the plains, large, rapid grass fires during droughts threaten livestock and farmland, and highly flammable non-native species such as cheatgrass and red cedar make drought-induced fires even more unstable.
An even bigger problem is that the snow drought is likely leaving many heavy wood fuels, such as trees, drier than in a normal spring, so the fuels will be ready to burn much earlier in the year. Drought-dried soil is unlikely to recover even with plenty of spring rain, and plants growing on it may not have enough moisture to green up and survive the flames.
Fire weather conditions also increase the potential for large wildland fires to burn in many parts of the West, regardless of fuel conditions. High winter and early spring temperatures, low relative humidity, and unusually strong and frequent storms, including the recent heat wave, have resulted in an unusual number of “red flag” fire weather days throughout the winter in many parts of the Rocky Mountains. Because of these fire weather conditions, where I live on the Colorado Rocky Mountain Front, power companies have shut off power several times since December to prevent power lines from starting wildfires.
High-stakes water negotiations
Early winter storms helped maintain relatively average precipitation in many parts of the West, but rain doesn’t help the region with long-term water security as much as snow does.
“Winter rain that runs right downstream doesn’t help as much in July as a gallon of snow that melts in April or May,” Casey Olson, a climate scientist at the Utah Climate Center, told ABC News. “Precipitation is not worth a gallon in terms of being available when you need it most.”
In some states, such as Colorado and Utah, 75% of their water supply in a given year comes from snowmelt. A growing number of studies are showing that climate change is causing snow droughts to become more frequent.
Traditional droughts are also being exacerbated by global warming. A study published this week found that from 2021 to 2023, the world experienced the most widespread and severe drought conditions in more than 100 years.
These events contribute to the shrinkage of the Colorado River, on which approximately 40 million people depend. Representatives from seven western states in the basin have met several times over the past two years to decide how to divide dwindling resources, but as Inside Climate News colleagues Jake Bolster and Wyatt Miskow reported in February, heated debates over who gets what have stalled the process, despite federal intervention.
In January, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released a draft environmental impact statement outlining proposed reductions in Colorado River water use starting in 2027.
The agency gave states a deadline in October to impose more aggressive cuts. The outcome of these negotiations could have a significant impact on water users (i.e. everyone in the South West), but particularly on the agriculture and energy industries. The Bureau of Reclamation recently estimated that water managers in the basin would have to conserve an additional 1.7 million acre-feet of water to prevent Lake Powell’s water levels from dropping enough to turn hydroelectric turbines at Arizona’s Glen Canyon Dam.
Meanwhile, farmers in Yuma, Arizona, which supplies much of the nation’s winter vegetables, are concerned they won’t be allocated enough water to grow their crops, news station ABC15 reported. Some farmers in Colorado are already adjusting their operations to grow more drought-tolerant crops.
But with negotiations stalled, the industry is unsure what will happen, and several states, including Nevada and California, have vowed to sue if they don’t get their way.
Experts say that no matter how things turn out, the western United States must learn how to adapt to drier conditions in the face of climate change.
“The record snowfall may be a harbinger of what a warmer future for this region will look like,” Alejandro N. Flores, a geoscientist at Boise State University, wrote in The Conversation. “This year’s snow drought is a high-stakes and timely stress test for the West. Everyone will be watching closely.”
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