State of Emergency in Washington?

Basically the whole west is in or getting into a severe drout. Where I live all winter has been dry except for December.

Good, same as last time many years ago. We'll probably get a letter from water dist.

Now I have an excuse not to water my lawn, which means no mowing and my lawn will look like all the others. Desert brown color.

What it means is that you and I will not be able to have a campfire or even possibly not camp in or on state land this summer!! That would be the worst case scenario. Also, the fire danger will be heading skyward along with the irrigation problems.

Where I live, almost everybody relies on irrigation water that is held in the reservoirs in the mountains and relies almost entirely on winter snowfall. Last official (!!??) word was aboot 45-47% of normal water availability in most districts! What happens in the next month or so will determine how each irrigation district will allot its water to their users. Mucho rain in late May and June could help make it closer to a normal year. Time will tell.

The Feds usually are a bit more relaxed (to use a term) than the state, so they will probably be shutting down campfires and liquid fuel stoves around mid-summer. If it does get bad enough, they too will possibly be shutting down the forests to camping and motorized travel.

The water situation is pretty lousy this year, but I kinda think that good 'ol boy Libby Inslee is being a bit political with this. But that's just my opinion!!!

Having just come through California, I would say that, while our snow pack and water levels are lower than usual, we are nowhere near the state of emergency that CA is.

California is REALLY bad, Oregon is low....South Umpqua river is at an August level (which means WAY too low)...and Washington (well, I haven't heard much about them). There isn't any snow on the passes (Cascades)....GADS, it only will get worse from here on out. Wildfires are the scariest!

They've been talking drought for quite awhile. Not being from CA I didn't give it much thought until they showed pictures on a news cast last week. Check out these shocking pics.
http://www.weather.com/science/news/devastating-photos-show-lakes-drying-20140825

WOW. They showed numerous rivers that were half gone and huge pieces of land that look like those pictures in third world countries of dried cracked barren land. Couldn't believe that was happening right here in the states. I now believe they needed to call a state of emergency.

Only sad thing is the golf courses and the growers are not going to give up one single drop of 'their' water allotment. Albiet there are some that are not using all their water and profiting instead of conserving by 'selling' their allotment to others.:R

CA is on the brink of metering private wells too. A lot of the people I know are running around punching un permitted wells all over their property for when that day comes.

Vancouver Island in the south part is the same. Mount Washington ski resort was only open very briefly this year with very poor conditions. Now the newspapers are warning us with every edition.

This chart was sent by TigerRV. It does not make for a comfortable outlook.






Gary Haupt

I live in the Sierras in Ca. Those pics still don't do it justice. I'm looking at bare peaks that haven't been snow free in almost 18 years. Meaning even in summer, they're capped with snow. It's been bad longer than most know.

But it'll change mid to late fall next season. Solar cycles being what they are, we're headed into a Grand Minimum Solar Cycle. Get ready for floods and blizzards. And no, I'm not kidding. Anyone over 35 has seen this before in varying degrees.

It doesn't help the poor farmers and citizens now, but it'll get better.

As for me, I'm headed to Washington this July for a week of camping. But I'll be in a private campground.

Check out the drought history of California in Wikipedia.
The past hundred years have been just about the wettest in history. The normal state of that area is very dry. There was a 240 year drought in the 800s AD followed by 50 years of very wet weather followed by a drought of 180 years.
Nature seems to be getting back to where it was for a large part of the past.