PNW 2020 Water Year Impacts Assessment Released
The Pacific Northwest Water Year 2020 Impacts Assessment has been released and is now available online. Sponsored by the NOAA National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), OWSC and colleagues with the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group led this regional collaboration that involved researchers and state and federal practitioners from Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The report recaps the major weather and climate events of water year 2020 (October 1, 2019-September 30, 2020) and connects these conditions with impacts experienced by farmers, water managers, fisheries managers, and others.
The impacts were collected by three main sources, 1) from discussions at the annual OR/WA water year meeting held in the fall, 2) from a regional water year survey that our team distributed to several regional water associations and other listservs, and 3) from the National Drought Mitigation Center/NIDIS Condition Monitoring Observer Report survey. For the 2020 report, drought was a focus, particularly in OR, where a flash drought occurred in late summer in southeastern OR, causing impacts to agriculture such as limiting forage for livestock, reducing growth of alfalfa, and needing to conserve and haul water. Drought in Deschutes River Basin in OR also impacted irrigated agriculture earlier in the summer.
Impacts from the devastating September wildfires were also highlighted, though not the focus of this report. For example, drinking water systems were damaged in OR (Figure 1) and power outages from wildfires in WA impacted drinking water system pressure, chlorination, etc. Damage to wine crops from the wildfires directly and from the smoke were also reported across the region. Water year 2020 also had the problem of “too much water”, and flooding impacts from the early February 2020 atmospheric river event in southeast WA and northeast OR are also reported on. The purpose here is not to re-write the assessment in full, but to whet your appetite for browsing the report. Lots of white space and pretty pictures makes for a pleasant read.
With that said, we are open to feedback on this assessment! We plan to continue this effort for at least the next two water years, and want this product to be useful. One goal of this work is to provide ongoing documentation of historical water years to look at patterns and specific weather/climate conditions that caused impacts. Another goal is for this assessment to be used to learn what other resources managers, state agencies, utilities, etc. did to respond to certain weather/climate conditions. The ultimate goal is to improve management of drought and other climate-related impacts in the future.
Reference
Bumbaco, K.A., C.L. Raymond, L.W. O’Neill, D.J. Hoekema. 2021. 2020 Pacific Northwest Water Year Impacts Assessment. A collaboration between the Office of the Washington State Climatologist, Climate Impacts Group, Oregon State Climatologist, Idaho Department of Water Resources, and NOAA National Integrated Drought Information System.