December 11, 2025

Snow Drought Status Update

Winter Begins With Rain Instead of Snow;

Snow Drought Takes Hold Across the West

Key Points

• Snow cover across the West was the lowest December 7 snow cover amount in the MODIS satellite record (since 2001), at 90,646 square miles.

• Water Year 2026 (October 1, 2025–September 30, 2026) precipitation to date is near or above median for many parts of the West. However, much warmer-than-normal temperatures caused precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow across many basins, leading to snow drought despite wetter-than-normal conditions across most of the West.   
• Nearly every major river basin in the West experienced a November among the top 5 warmest on record. 

• Snow drought is most severe across much of the Sierra Nevada in California, the Cascade Range in Washington and Oregon, the Blue Mountains of Oregon, and the Great Basin in Nevada, with snow water equivalent (SWE) in most of these basins at less than 50% of median.

• Rain across the West increased soil moisture and reservoir levels. However, the continued above-normal temperatures forecast across the West may worsen snow drought conditions.   

• Winter just began, and snowpack can change dramatically with a single storm this early in the season. Cold, wet weather is needed to improve snowpack conditions.

The rest of this snow drought update is available online.

For More Information, Please Contact:

Daniel McEvoy, Western Regional Climate Center

Daniel.McEvoy@dri.edu

Jason Gerlich, NOAA/NIDIS/CIRES Pacific Northwest Regional Drought Information Coordinator

Jason.Gerlich@noaa.gov

Amanda Sheffield, NOAA/NIDIS/CIRES California/Nevada Regional Drought Information Coordinator

Amanda.Sheffield@noaa.gov

NIDIS and its partners launched this snow drought effort in 2018 to provide data, maps, and tools for monitoring snow drought and its impacts as well as communicating the status of snow drought across the United States, including Alaska. Thank you to our partners for your continued support of this effort and review of these updates.

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NIDIS is an interagency program within the Climate Program Office, which is part of NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.