U.S. state and federal agencies have sounded the alarm regarding the snow drought over the past winter months, with Colorado and Utah officials saying it’s been 40 years since such a severe snow drought has been recorded. Overall, it’s the worst in 25 years. This comes on top of underlying water supply crises in the Western river basins, from lack of infrastructure to impound run-off, desalinate Pacific and other water, divert far northern water southward, etc., all the while the population, and the need for water grows.
A “snow drought” refers to the condition of an abnormally low snowpack for this time of year, so there is little melt-off to replenish rivers and lakes. In mid-January, NASA released imagery that showed sparse snow cover on the Rocky Mountains and Cascades—the lowest extent recorded for that date since satellite monitoring began in 2001.
Early forecasts of the effects of El Nino on the weather in the U.S. indicate that there is no guarantee that there will be a sufficient amount of cooler and wetter air to remedy the drought, according to the official government Drought website.
The Colorado and Rio Grande River Basins are extremely water short, with states suing each other, and Washington threatening Mexico. For example, Texas just won a water use lawsuit against New Mexico in 2025, which threatens to shut down the famed pecan orchards in New Mexico, which place the state among the top three U.S. pecan producers, along with Texas and Georgia, for output of the nut indigenous to North America. There are similar stories for the crops and livestock in every Western state. Arizona, in the Lower Colorado system, has drastically cut back on agriculture, for lack of water. Only Nebraska–which now outranks California in irrigated area–has relatively sufficient water, from the Ogallala Aquifer, and Missouri River watershed.
Western states of the U.S. are very productive agriculturally, with California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington providing a substantial portion of the nation’s fruits, nuts, and vegetables; the Mountain and Great Plains states providing beef cattle, grains, soybeans, alfalfa and livestock feed.
