It’s not just the west that has to worry.
“In the past two decades, this is one of the largest coverages of drought for two reasons,” Brad Pugh, a meteorologist at NOAA, tells. There’s a long-term drought that’s been no stranger to the west, plus a short-term drought that’s developed across the midwest and southeastern US. You can see the difference in the drought monitor maps below that depict conditions in October 2021 and October 2022.
Two maps depict varying drought conditions in the US. The map on the left was released on October 19, 2021, and the map on the right was released on October 18, 2022.The maps are shaded to represent conditions ranging from “abnormally dry” to “exceptional drought” . In the October 2021 map, much of the western US faced severe to exceptional drought, while drought conditions were absent in much of the central and eastern parts of the country.
Unfortunately for the southwest, it’ll likely take multiple wet years to even begin to make up for how bone dry the region has become with the current megadrought. And climate change will continue to suck the west dry as long as gas-guzzling cars and fossil fuel power plants keep spewing greenhouse gas pollution. Hotter temperatures and diminishing snowfall will cut further into water supplies.