Almost half of the West in dry-drought conditions, including Lake Tahoe

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - It isn't news to those who live in or frequent the Lake Tahoe region, the area has been experiencing very dry conditions this winter. Even though dry, it is not bad enough yet to put Tahoe into a drought category. The Drought Monitor released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) places 45 percent of the country in the D0-D4 categories, or abnormally dry to exceptional drought. This is a big change from 2018-19. At that time Lake Tahoe had well above average snow, but 62.6 percent of the U.S. fell into the Do-D4 categories.

An estimated 3.9 million people are living in an area of the United States experiencing drought while the Lake Tahoe area is in what weather experts are calling "dry conditions."

With high pressure anchored over the eastern Pacific Ocean, storm systems bypassed California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah this week and instead tracked either northward into the Pacific Northwest or southward across Baja California and into the southern Rockies. Once those storm systems reached the Nation’s mid-section, ample Gulf moisture was incorporated into the storm systems, generating widespread showers and thunderstorms in the South and Southeast, along with mixed or frozen precipitation in more northern locales. The week’s heaviest precipitation (1-4 inches) fell on western sections of Washington and Oregon, parts of the Rockies, and in the southern Great Plains, lower Mississippi, Tennessee, and Ohio Valleys, Southeast, and Appalachians. Weekly temperatures averaged below normal in Alaska and across much of the North-Central States as Arctic air brought sub-zero readings to most of the Midwest Thursday and Friday.

In contrast, above-normal readings encompassed the Southeast, mid-Atlantic, and portions of the Far West.

The snow and snow water equivalent measurements in the Washington Cascades are near- or above-normal but those values decrease as one heads southward, with between 77-91 percent of normal in the Oregon Cascades, and dropping to between 52-71 percent of normal in the Sierra Nevada.

There is not much chance of rain or snow in the 10-day forecast for Lake Tahoe. The NOAA 90-day forecast shows high chances for above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation.