SPOKANE, Wash. -- Snowpack and river flow forecasts are looking good, but there are signs that another drought could be on the way to the Inland Northwest.
In Spokane, it's actually been a drier than average start to 2023. For the calendar year the city is 1.5" behind average for moisture. It's a similar story across the region.
A large shift in weather patterns at the start of the year pushed most of the moisture coming out of the Pacific into California. For the Golden State it's been too much rain and snow too fast.
This shift to drier weather in Washington and Idaho is only exacerbating the problems for a region that still has traces of drought from the past three summers. Soil moisture across the North Cascades and Idaho Panhandle is in the bottom percentiles. The Washington Department of Ecology says that water supplies in the Yakima Valley will be an estimated 14% lower than usual.
In other words, the Inland Northwest is already playing catchup. The trends for the rest of spring don't look all that promising either. The Climate Prediction Center is now forecasting higher chances for dry weather between April and June.
Will we see a drought? Probably, but how severe it will be remains unknown.
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