From The Cliff Mass Weather Blog

By CliffMass

Northwest drought is being exaggerated by a group including publicly funded agencies, the media, local government, and climate activists.   

At its essence, it is ideological, anti-science, political, and self-serving.

This blog will go into the problem in greater depth than my analysis of last week.

The center of what might be called the Drought Exaggeration Industry is the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which is associated with the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  

The most viewed product of this National Drought Center is the Drought Monitor graphic, the national view of which is shown below.

To see how nonsensical and anti-science this effort is, consider the latest drought map for Washington State (released yesterday, and shown below).    

Most of Washington State is “abnormally dry” or in drought, with severe or extreme drought over the eastern slopes of the Cascades and the far portion of the state (see below).  

As shown below, this is total nonsense and inconsistent with hard data.  

Precipitation has been above normal, soils are moist, rivers are above normal levels, reservoirs are above normal, and snowpack is in decent shape.

But this wacky website does not end there.  It claims that 2.4 million Washington residents are in drought:

It states that 1,778,920 King County residents, many of whom are dealing with flooded roads, failing levees, and sodden fields, are affected by drought.

But the national drought meisters don’t stop there!   They inform us that in KING COUNTY, 3266 cattle and 755 sheep are in drought.   And that thousands of acres of King County hay are in drought.

Perhaps the national drought folks should speak to one of our local cows, many of which have been moved to escape flooding (see below)

It is easy to prove that the drought claims for Washington State are entirely baseless.

For the past 90 days, precipitation over Washington has been near normal (light green or yellow) or above normal (blue and purple).

Soil moisture is above normal over much of the state and MUCH above normal over the eastern Cascades slopes, where the drought monitor graphic has moderate to severe drought.  Go figure.

Our rivers are mostly running above normal levels, some at near record levels (black dots, particularly east of the Cascades):

Reservoirs are way above normal.   The critical Yakima storage system….the fixation of the drought folks for a long time…. is not only above normal, but at levels commonly found at the end of winter.

Seattle’s reservoirs are way above normal (see below) as are most of the others in the region.

What about snowpack, another fixation of the drought folks?   Good news, there has been lots of recent snow in the mountains, and most ski areas are open for Christmas. 

 Below are the latest numbers, which show a stunning recovery from a few weeks ago.  The snowpack feeding the Columbia River is now ABOVE NORMAL, and the snowpack for most of the western Cascades is 75% of normal.  More snow is expected during the next few days.

By any rational analysis, there is no drought going on.  

There will be plenty of water for all uses.  Furthermore, this is a La Niña year, which is usually good for water resources.

The unsupportable and unscientific drought talk is very destructive and counterproductive.   

It induces fear and worry in the population, particularly the most psychologically vulnerable.  It results in poor decision-making.    

Who are some folks doing this?   

Some are doing it to promote their politics and ideology.  Others to push a climate change agenda, which they either believe in or profit from.  Media, such as the Seattle Times Climate Lab, do so for clicks and financial support from activist groups.  YouTube and social media channels do it for clicks and advertising revenue.

But whatever their reasons, I hope that the current administration takes a deep look at this drought-pushing enterprise and reforms the government-supported side of the advocacy campaign.  

Wishing all of you a good holiday.