Worst spring drought on record grips US, fueling wildfires and water worries

By Meteorologist Chris Dolce, CNN

(CNN) — Drought in the continental United States has expanded to its record-highest level for spring, and it’s fueling wildfire and water shortage concerns as the summer’s drying heat fast approaches.

Varying levels of drought covered 62.78% of the country as April 21, with the worst of it centered on much of the South, West and Plains. Put another way, dryness in the Lower 48 states has never been this expansive in spring in the history of the US Drought Monitor, which has data back to 2000.

The Southeast in particular is facing unprecedented levels of dryness, with 94% of the area from Florida to Virginia officially in severe or worse drought, the highest on record. Bone-dry vegetation is already feeding at least 20 large fires across the region as of Wednesday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

This year’s footprint of parched conditions is also just 2 to 3% behind the monitor’s record for anytime of year, set on September 25, 2012.

The April data comes on the heels of a March that had the third worst drought conditions in over 130 years of records, based on another way the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calculates long-term dryness across the continental US. Only two 1934 Dust Bowl-era months were worse off.

Drought intensifies after record-dry start to 2026

A dearth of rain and snow in the first three months of 2026 has helped stoke this spring’s drought. Precipitation for the continental US as a whole was less than 70% of average from January through March, which ranks as the lowest in records dating to 1895, according to NOAA. The previous record was set in 1910.

La Niña likely played a role in the lack of rain, especially across the nation’s southern tier, while in the West, storms have tracked farther north this winter and early spring, avoiding the Rockies.

Parched conditions in the Southeast have worsened significantly through winter and early spring, with over 99% of the region experiencing some level of drought.

In Georgia, extreme drought now covers 71% of the state, the highest since 2012. It’s prompted the first-ever mandatory burn ban in the history of the Georgia Forestry Commission for 91 counties in the lower half of the state.

That includes Brantley County, about 20 miles west of Brunswick, Georgia, where the Highway 82 Fire has burned at least 54 structures — including homes — and forced evacuations this week. More than 99% of the county is now in exceptional drought, the highest category, for the first time on record. No injuries or deaths have been reported so far, forestry commission spokesperson Seth Hawkins told CNN Thursday.

Crews are also battling a fire in southeastern Georgia’s Clinch County, near the Florida border, named the Pineland Road Fire.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp Wednesday declared a state of emergency for 91 counties in response to the ongoing fires, freeing up resources and allowing for state National Guard troops to be deployed to the affected areas.

Wildfires in Florida are feeding off of vegetation made tinder-dry by a double-whammy of depleted rainfall from La Niña this past winter and a lack rainfall from tropical storms last fall. Nearly 1,800 wildfires have charred parts of the state so far this year, according to the Florida Forest Service.

In the West, an unprecedented March heat wave made worse by planet-warming pollution also further depleted the dismal snowpack from a winter filled with more blue skies than snowflakes. Colorado’s state climate center said in early April, “This has been the worst year for Colorado snowpack in recorded history.”

That’s raising concerns about water shortages as many western states rely on melted snowpack to feed reservoirs and rivers ahead of the drier summer months. That includes the already-shrinking Colorado River, which provides water to tens of millions of people in seven Southwest states.

Minimum inflow from the Colorado River into Lake Powell over the coming months is expected to be just 29% of its historical average, and one of the lowest on record for the reservoir along the border between Arizona and Utah, according to a Bureau of Reclamation forecast. Low water levels at Powell will also impact Lake Mead — the nation’s largest reservoir — downstream, as well as its hydropower operations at the Hoover Dam. Reduced water releases from Powell could be a significant hit to Hoover’s hydropower, cutting it 40% as early as this fall, according to the agency.

Wildfires nationwide had burned more than 1.7 million acres as of April 17, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. That’s nearly twice the average acreage burned by that date for the previous 10 years. A big chunk of that was Nebraska’s Morrill Fire, which became the largest in the state’s history in March after strong winds caused it to spread rapidly across over 640,000 acres of drought-starved vegetation.

Fire concerns are expected to grow more dire in the West over the next few months. Above-normal fire activity is forecast to expand from the Plains to the Four Corners states into Northern California and parts of Oregon, Washington and Idaho from May through July, according to an outlook from the fire center.

Florida is also expected to face more above average fire activity through at least June, when the summer’s rainy season ramps up to bring relieving downpours.

In the shorter-term, the South is expected to see some much-needed rainfall over the next week.

Drought-suffering locations from eastern Oklahoma to Tennessee, northern Alabama and northern Georgia could see 1 to 3 inches of rainfall, but that will be just a drop in the bucket. Parts of the region would need to pick up 20 inches or more of rain within the next three months to dig out of the current drought, according to NOAA.

Portions of the central and southern Rockies need over 10 inches of precipitation to end the drought within three months. That’s not expected to happen as the region is heading into its drier late-spring and summer months, though rainfall from the Southwest monsoon could help the region from July through September.

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