Across the American West, winter has arrived looking more like a soggy shoulder season than the deep-freeze that usually locks mountain snow into place. Temperatures have run so warm that storms are falling as rain at elevations that once guaranteed powder, leaving hillsides brown and reservoirs facing a precarious spring. The season feels deceptively gentle, but the fallout for water supplies, mountain towns and summer fire risk could be severe.
What is unfolding is not a quirky one-off but a textbook “snow drought,” in which precipitation may be near normal yet the snowpack that sustains the region is alarmingly thin. I see a pattern emerging from Utah to Eastern Washington and Idaho that points to a new winter reality, one that will test how cities, farms and ski economies adapt when the West’s frozen savings account fails to refill.
The anatomy of a shockingly mild winter
To understand how unusual this winter feels, it helps to start with the basic physics: when temperatures creep a few degrees higher, storms that once delivered snow instead arrive as rain. Federal analysts report that Warm conditions have carved a sharp elevational divide into the snowpack, with Snow clinging to high ridgelines while low and mid elevations have already melted out or never accumulated much at all. Earlier in the season, officials noted that Water Year 2026 precipitation was near or above typical levels in much of the West, yet the snowpack lagged badly, a gap that underscores how warmth, not lack of storms, is driving the crisis.
That warmth has been relentless. Climate monitors describe Near record or record warmth across every major river basin in the West through December, a pattern that extended the balmy conditions many communities felt in late autumn. One analysis found that December was the warmest on record in dozens of cities in the West, including Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Las Vegas and other hubs that typically count on at least a brief cold snap. In the Intermountain West, observers say All five states in the Intermountain West, including Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, just logged their warmest December on record, leaving ski slopes bare and snowpack near the lowest levels seen so far.
Snow drought by the numbers
Behind the mild days and rain-soaked ski runs is a stark set of measurements. Hydrologists track the “Percent of Median Snow Water Equivalent” to gauge how much water is locked in the snowpack, and current maps show large swaths of the West shaded in the lowest category, where values are less than 50% of typical levels. Officials note that no basin value is near average on that Percent of Median chart, a sign that the Median year is a distant benchmark rather than a realistic expectation. The Current SWE deficit is so widespread that water managers are already gaming out emergency scenarios for late summer.
Satellite and ground observations tell a similar story. Analysts at NASA report that, Overall, the preceding few months were very wet and warm across the West, with storms in the early part of the Overall season falling as rain on the lofty peaks instead of building snowpack. For the water year that began in early autumn, many regions saw above average precipitation, yet at least one monitoring station in every major western watershed recorded the lowest SWE in at least 20 years on January. That combination, plenty of moisture but record low snowpack, is the statistical fingerprint of a snow drought rather than a classic dry spell.
Mountain towns and ski economies on the edge
The first to feel the pain of a balmy winter are often the communities that market snow as their main attraction. In Colorado, federal forecasters say a Dry, warm winter has left the state and the broader West with the worst snowpack in decades, a blow to resorts that rely on winter tourism to keep local economies afloat. One resort executive described how “We experienced one of the worst early season snowfalls in the western U.S. in over 30 years, which limited our ability to open terrain,” a warning carried in a report that detailed how operators struggled through the month as a whole, a story captured in the Feb account of that early season crunch.
Experts who track mountain economies say the current snowpack crisis signals a new climate reality for ski towns that built their identities around reliable winters. One analysis warned that Experts now see Record warmth across the West as a structural shift rather than a blip, forcing resorts to invest heavily in snowmaking, diversify into four-season tourism or risk being left behind. I have heard similar concerns in Utah, where one scientist described the low and mid elevation snowfall as “Just totally uncharted territory,” a phrase that appeared in a Just account of how little snow has fallen in Utah’s lower mountains.
Water supplies and a cascade of downstream risks
The real test of this mild winter will come months from now, when rivers that depend on gradual snowmelt are supposed to swell. Hydrologists describe the West’s snowpack as a natural reservoir that slowly releases water into streams, aquifers and big storage projects like Lake Powell and Lake Mead. When that reservoir is depleted, as it is this year, runoff arrives earlier and in smaller pulses, leaving less to recharge systems through the hottest months. A national overview of drought conditions notes that Winter Brings Rain to the West, and that pattern, repeated over several years of the Water Year cycle, can leave reservoirs chronically underfilled.
Scientists warn that a persistent snow drought can trigger a chain reaction in the hydrologic system. According to According to NOAA, Low snowpack and early melt can alter streamflow timing, reduce groundwater recharge and complicate flood forecasts and reservoir operations. A separate federal update stresses that Warm temperatures have already affected agriculture, recreation and energy, with utilities facing tighter margins as hydropower output drops. In the broader United States, a recent Story by Sara Hashemi highlighted how Snow drought is already worrying experts about the region’s water supply, a concern echoed by NASA Earth scientists who track how much water once stayed locked in the mountains.
A preview of a hotter future
What is happening in the West this winter looks less like an anomaly and more like a preview of the climate that models have long projected. Researchers have documented how Warmer winter temperatures have caused more precipitation to fall as rain instead of Snow, leaving snow cover across the West at some of the lowest levels seen in recent years. A broader drought assessment notes that much of the West started the season with soils already stressed, and that How the rest of the West fares will depend on whether late season storms can overcome the early warmth, a prospect that looks increasingly uncertain.
Elsewhere in the world, scientists are seeing parallel signs of a warming planet eroding frozen reserves. A recent study highlighted in a climbing and mountaineering report warned that 50% of glaciers could disappear by 2100, after a summer in which heatwaves led to record breaking June temperatures and triggered more life threatening rockfalls and serac collapses. The same physics that are stripping ice from alpine faces are now nibbling away at the West’s snowpack, one warm storm at a time. In that sense, the region’s strangely gentle winter is not just a local curiosity but part of a global pattern that will keep reshaping how we think about water, risk and what winter even means.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
