Floods eased drought in Midwest; West now a concern

Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, @USATODAYWeather | USATODAY

The record flooding has ended the disastrous drought in some, but not all, parts of the Midwest, federal drought experts reported Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Far West is still suffering from a lack of wintertime rain and snow, adding to drought and wildfire worries there.

Thursday's U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly federal website that tracks drought across the country, noted, surprisingly, that the Upper Midwest remains in a low-level drought, as the region continues to deal with long-term precipitation deficits, despite the seasonal spring flooding.

It's been very cold in Minnesota and the Dakotas, which "still have a layer of frozen ground 1 or 2 feet down," says U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist Eric Luebehusen, the author of this week's monitor. This means that much of the moisture from the rain and snow did not soak in, he says, which exacerbated the flooding.

In fact, the monitor reports that more than 90% of the state of Minnesota remains either abnormally dry or in a drought. "We're taking it slow with drought recovery in that area," he says.

But other Midwest states such as Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee -- all of which were in a drought last summer -- are now entirely drought-free.

Nationally, 46.9% of the contiguous U.S. is in a drought. "Drought coverage is now down 14.19 percentage points since the beginning of 2013 and down 18.55 points from the record high of 65.45% on Sept. 25, 2012," said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Drought in the Southeast is now almost entirely gone, Rippey noted. North Carolina is now completely free of drought for the first time since November.

"However, there is an increasingly sharp gradient between drought and non-drought areas; currently that line stretches roughly from the Texas-Louisiana border to Lake Superior, with drought to the west of that demarcation zone," he says.

Worries are now shifting to the West: The water year in the Southwest was "abysmal," Luebehusen says.

In fact, in California, the final snow survey of the season conducted Thursday was bad news for the millions of state residents who rely on the snowpack for their water.

The state Department of Water Resources found the water content in the snowpack on Thursday was 17% of normal, an ominous situation for a state that depends on a steady stream of snowmelt to replenish reservoirs throughout the summer. Snowmelt provides up to 75% of the freshwater supply in the West.

"The water-year's disappointing conclusion was further evidenced by the last three months, when rainfall tallied less than 20 percent of normal from the southern California coast into western Arizona and much of central and eastern New Mexico," according to the Drought Monitor.

Drought intensified in southeast Colorado, western Kansas, Texas' Big Bend and Panhandle, New Mexico and Arizona. Most of the increase in exceptional drought -- the worst level of drought -- was in New Mexico, where the area in exceptional drought increased to 24.89% from 4.36%.

Wildfires raging Thursday in southern California could also be the start of a calamitous fire season in the West:

A seasonal wildfire forecast this week from the National Interagency Fire Center noted that "across the western U.S., fire season is likely to occur somewhat earlier than normal in most areas due to the effect severe drought has had on fuel dryness early in the season. Worsening conditions in California could accelerate the onset of fire season and the potential for significant fires in May, nearly a month ahead of schedule."

Contributing: Associated Press