{"id":650152,"date":"2026-05-18T10:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/650152\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T10:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T10:38:10","slug":"record-low-water-shortages-expected-ahead-of-very-active-us-wildfire-season-wildfire-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/650152\/","title":{"rendered":"Record-low water shortages expected ahead of very active US wildfire season \u2013 Wildfire Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States\u2019 Natural Resources Conservation Service on Thursday issued a dire forecast<\/a> for Western states, ahead of what\u2019s expected to be a very active wildfire season.<\/p>\n

The Service, overseen by the Department of Agriculture, said many of the states\u2019 rivers are expected to have extremely low streamflows for the spring and summer seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the rivers are likely to experience well-below median streamflows, which may rival the lowest flows on record for the region,\u201d the Service said in the Department\u2019s most recent Water and Climate Update<\/a>. \u201cWater shortages are anticipated in many locations, especially for entities that rely on surface streamflow water, without the benefit of having access to stored reservoir water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Service officials said the low streamflows will have major impacts on wildlife, recreation, city municipalities, power generation and agriculture.<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: USDA<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, this year in the West and southern tier, it has been very dry and very warm,\u201d Physical Sciences Laboratory research meteorologist Andrew Hoell recently said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about some historically warm conditions and at the same time below average precipitation. That sets up the land surface to be able to burn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoell\u00a0was the lead author of a recent study that found the \u201cLa Ni\u00f1a\u201d and \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o\u201d phases of a fluctuating water temperature climate pattern called the\u00a0El Ni\u00f1o-Southern Oscillation<\/a> act as accurate predictors of wildfire severity up to a year in advance. The pattern entered its La Ni\u00f1a phase last fall, and was followed by\u00a0the historic snow drought\u00a0and early spring heat wave, which created drier and more flammable fuels.<\/p>\n

Click here to read the full study.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States\u2019 Natural Resources Conservation Service on Thursday issued a dire forecast for Western states, ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-650152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}