News | Washington State Climate Office

A photograph of the fertile Palouse in eastern Washington. A green field in the foreground is being watered via pivot irrigation. Dry, brown foothills makeup the middleground and background.

Apr 8, 2026 | April 2026 Newsletter, Climate Change Report, Climate Matters, Climate Review, Drought and Soil Conditions

Climate Matters: Assessing Drought Impacts

The newest statewide drought declaration announced this week marks the fourth consecutive year with a drought declaration in at least some part of Washington State. With these recent droughts, WASCO has been working to better understand the myriad of ways that droughts can develop and their sector-specific impacts.

Aerial photo of the Sauk Skagit confluence.

Jan 13, 2026 | Climate Matters, Climate Review, Drought and Soil Conditions, Flooding and Streamflow, January 2026 Newsletter, Rain and Snow

December 8-11, 2025 Heavy Rainfall and Flooding: Historical Context and a Note on Snow Drought

Event recap
Major flooding impacted western Washington and the eastern Cascades last month. Impacts included numerous washouts and landslides on roadways including a weeks-long shutdown of US-2 and lane closures on I-90.

A photograph of a CoCoRaHS rain gauge. The gauge is attached to a 4-6 foot wood pole located in an open field. Dark storm clouds are brewing in the background.

Dec 6, 2025 | Climate Matters, December 2025 Newsletter, Drought and Soil Conditions, Rain and Snow

Climate Matters: The CoCoRaHS Rain Gauge Network and a Tale of Two Hydrologic Extremes

On November 14-15, 2021, 4.67” of rain fell at Bellingham International Airport, setting a new record for that location. This storm brought with it the most devastating flood that Whatcom County has seen in decades.

Nov 7, 2025 | Climate Matters, Climate Review, Drought and Soil Conditions, November 2025 Newsletter, Rain and Snow, Temperature

Climate Matters: Water Year 2025 in Review

Water year 2025 is complete, and it’s time to take a look back and see how WA stacked up historically. The 2025 water year includes the 12 months from October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2025, as opposed to the usual calendar year.

Apr 4, 2025 | April 2025 Newsletter, Climate Matters, Climate Review, Climate Variability, Drought and Soil Conditions

The Fifth Pacific Northwest Water Year 2024 Impacts Assessment

The fifth Pacific Northwest (PNW) Water Year Impacts Assessment, released in March, chronicles the water year, its impacts, and how people responded across Washington, Oregon, and Idaho during the 2024 water year (October 1, 2023-September 30, 2024).

Sep 10, 2024 | Climate Matters, Drought and Soil Conditions

See More Drought with C-MOR Drought Reporting

The Condition Monitoring Observer Reports on Drought (CMOR-Drought) is a collaborative effort by the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC), USDA Climate Hubs, and NOAA National Integrated Drought Information Systems (NIDIS) to document drought impacts across the nation since 2018.

May 2, 2024 | Climate Matters, Climate Review, Drought and Soil Conditions

Fourth PNW Water Year Impacts Assessment Released

The fourth Pacific Northwest (PNW) Water Year Impacts Assessment, released in March, is a collaborative effort between water managers and scientists at the Office of the Washington State Climatologist, the Climate Impacts Group, Oregon Climate Service, Idaho Department of Water Resources, and the NOAA National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).

Sep 13, 2023 | Climate Matters, Drought and Soil Conditions

Comparative Analysis of Soil Moisture Products in WA

Soil moisture is becoming an increasingly important parameter in drought indication. However, collecting soil moisture data on a large scale is not easy, due to the multitude of soil properties and environmental factors affecting water accumulation and drainage in soils.

Jul 11, 2023 | Climate Matters, Drought and Soil Conditions

Aridity Index – Columbia Basin Time Series

Readers of this newsletter know that the Columbia Basin of Washington state is a dry region due to the shadowing of precipitation by the Cascade Mountains. Perhaps less appreciated is that this effect is actually a bit more pronounced in summer than in winter.

Jun 8, 2023 | Climate Matters, Drought and Soil Conditions, Seasonal

Potential Evapotranspiration: Extreme Days in Eastern WA

This piece represents a follow-on to previous work focusing on summer seasonal mean trends in potential evapotranspiration (pET) in eastern Washington state (Bond and Bumbaco 2015). Our primary objective is to show how yearly counts of high pET days have varied since the late 1980s.