Winter’s alarmingly low snowpack offers a glimpse of the changing rhythm of water in the western US

The western U.S. recorded a historic snow drought in winter 2025–26, with temperatures from November through February running 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average, causing much winter precipitation to fall as rain rather than snow. By March 30, 2026, the vast majority of snow measurement stations across the West showed snowpack at less than 50 percent of the 1991–2020 median—the critical April 1 measurement that water managers use to forecast summer supplies. Even regions that received near- or above-normal precipitation failed to build substantial snowpack because warmth confined snow to only the highest elevations. As warming temperatures push the freezing line higher up mountains, less area can sustain seasonal snowpack, fundamentally reshaping the region's hydrograph and threatening water flows into summer when farms, homes, and ecosystems depend on snowmelt feeding rivers and reservoirs.