Washington state’s drought hasn’t relented, despite few rain drops

Don’t let a bit of rain in the last few weeks fool you. Washington is still in drought, state officials said.

Eastern and Central Washington are in extreme drought. Western Washington is in slightly better shape, in severe drought. Winter rain and snow is expected to be below average, too, so the state might start 2016 in worse shape than it started 2015.

“This historic drought is not over,” Maia Bellon, Ecology Department director, said Thursday.

The combination of the El Nino weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, coupled with a separate area of warm water off the Northwest coast that meteorologists call “the Blob” means the winter of 2015-16 is expected to be warmer and drier than normal, State Climatologist Nick Bond said.

While that points to a “toasty” winter, he said, it’s unlikely to be as extreme as last year.

The snowpack probably will get to at least 70 percent of normal, he said.

There’s only an outside chance – about 10 percent to 15 percent – this winter will be the same as last winter, Bond added.

Recent rains have improved the stream flows on some rivers to near normal levels, said Cindi Barton of the U.S. Geological Survey. Streams fed by glacial and snow melt remain low. In general, river flows are worse than previous drought years of 2001 and 2005.

Low stream flows and high temperatures killed an estimated 1.5 million juvenile fish in state fisheries and were particularly hard on coho, rainbow trout and steelhead. The state may see lower fish returns over the next few years because of high mortality this year, said Joe Storh, deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Department.

Agriculture officials still are trying to calculate farm losses, but yields for many crops are down and the drought has resulted in smaller apples and berries.

“Right now, nature seems upside down,” said Bellon, who said some cherry trees in the Zillah area are blossoming.