Northwest Water Shortage

Northwest Water Shortage

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
I'm Bob Larson. The weather watch continues in the Pacific Northwest as water supplies and fire danger continue to be major concerns for everyone, including farmers and ranchers.

As the state of Washington makes its way through another warm stretch, many, including U.S. Representative Dan

Newhouse, are keeping a close eye on the snowpack that feeds our rivers through the summer ...

NEWHOUSE ... "Our snowpack wasn't exactly what we had hoped for. Warm weather has caused a lot of melt to the snowpack earlier than anticipated. Farmer are getting more and more used to this and have taken a lot of measures over the last few years to be better stewards and users of that precious resource and I would just encourage people to take those steps now, as much as possible, be as judicious with their water usage as they can just to make sure we make it through the season with adequate supplies."

But, Newhouse says we've seen worse ...

NEWHOUSE ... "I don't see quite the levels of urgency that maybe we've had in some years, but, as you know, we have a lot of summer left ahead of us and probably some extended periods of pretty warm temperatures. So, I think it's best to take as much action now as we can so that we can get through the year in as good a shape as possible."

Last month, Governor Inslee expanded the drought emergency from three to 27 watersheds, covering nearly half the state, but some in the local climate science community are saying it bears watching, but not as bad as we've seen in recent years.

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