Most reservoirs in Oregon are 10% to 30% lower than where they were at this time last year and some are at historic lows, signaling serious problems for irrigators who rely on them to water their crops. Overall, Oregon is experiencing its third-driest two-year period since 1895, the experts said. Seven counties in central Oregon are experiencing the driest two-year period since the start of record-keeping 127 years ago. Drought Monitor, and parts of eastern Washington and western and southern Idaho are in severe drought. Most of central and eastern Oregon is in exceptional or extreme drought, according to the U.S.
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The National Interagency Fire Center recently designated all of central Oregon as “above normal” for fire danger starting in May - one of the earliest starts of fire season in the state ever. “Climate change may be changing this storm track, but there is yet no consensus on how it is affecting the Pacific Northwest,” he said. Scientists are debating the cause of the shift in the weather pattern and some believe a warming northern Pacific Ocean could be part of the cause, said O'Neill. In the Pacific Northwest, the worst impacts from the drought this summer will be felt in Oregon, which missed out on critical winter storms would normally moisten central and southern Oregon and southern Idaho. The study calculated that 42% of this megadrought can be attributed to human-caused climate change. The predictions are in line with dire warnings about climate change-induced drought and extreme heat across the American West.Ī 22-year megadrought deepened so much last year that the broader region is now in the driest spell in at least 1,200 years - a worst-case climate change scenario playing out in real time, a study found last month. “Right now, we’re very worried about this region, about the adversity of impacts we’re going to experience this year.” “This year we’re doing quite a bit worse than we were last year at this time, so one of the points is to make everyone aware that we’re going into some tough times in Oregon this summer,” said Larry O'Neill, Oregon's state climatologist. West Coast scuttled storms in January and February that the region normally counts on to replenish water levels and build up a snowpack that feeds streams and rivers in later months, the experts said. An unusual ridge of high pressure off the U.S.
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Drought covers 74% of the Pacific Northwest and nearly 20% is in extreme or exceptional drought, according to the U.S.