4-Year Drought Deepens in Nevada With No End in Sight
Nevada’s four-year drought deepened in August as most of the state withered under above-normal temperatures and below-normal rainfall and an already scant water storage dwindled.
“It’s just a continuation of the bad news,” state Climatologist John James said Friday. “The heat speeded evaporation and the dry weather just exacerbated the drought.”
He said August marked the sixth consecutive month with above-normal temperatures statewide. Final figures had not been compiled on Friday, but James said Reno was about 4 degrees above normal and Las Vegas was about one degree hotter than normal.
Meanwhile, precipitation was below normal in all but the northern quarter of the state, where Winnemucca’s .97 inch was three times its August average.
On the down side, James said Reno was well below normal at one-fifth of an inch. Las Vegas got only a trace of rain in what normally is one of its wetter months.
With Lake Tahoe’s level about two inches from falling below its spillways, James said conditions are very similar to those of 1987-88, the worst previous year of the current drought.
The only plus in a warm and dry forecast is that the Labor Day weekend should be just about perfect, James said.
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