The drought bullseye has shifted to a New Mexico – Colorado – West Kansas configuration. Recent midwestern rains and floods have abated the drought in the wheat belt and removed it from Illinois and most of the adjacent states, and the recent tendency in the Southeast toward drought is absent, but those are the main silver linings in a grim national picture.
Most of the west is in drought, including of 90% of Texas.
Although there have been some spring rains and the countryside in central Texas looks lush and pretty, reservoirs and aquifers enter the summer at a historic low and 90% of the state is in drought. If rainfall is even modestly below normal (comparable to last summer), a simple extrapolation shows complete depletion of Texas reservoirs. State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon explains that this is not entirely realistic but that major urban areas in Texas may actually run dry this summer.
“The forecast represents a statewide average. Many places, probably in eastern Texas, will be still have plenty of water available from reservoirs, but other places, mostly in central and West Texas, will do much worse. Current hotspots are the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico and north-central Texas west of Fort Worth.”
Seasonal outlook shows a hot summer is very likely for most of the country, and below normal precipitation is more likely than not for Colorado and New Mexico. This is the current August-September-October outlook; maps for other periods this year show very similar patterns.