The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, although battered by Trump administration attempts to impose massive staff and budget cuts on the agency, nevertheless continues to publish critical climate information, including some dire drought warnings in the spring outlook published March 20 by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

The outlook calls for continued dry conditions in the Southwest, where global warming is a key driver of a long-term megadrought that is already disrupting water supplies to cities and nationally important agricultural zones.

About 40 percent of the contiguous 48 states are currently in some stage of drought or abnormally dry conditions, and those are expected to persist in the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest and Southern Plains, according to the March 20 bulletin. 

In the past two weeks, water officials in the West warned that, despite near-average snowpack in some parts of the Colorado River’s mountain watershed, the river’s flows are expected to drop below normal, exacerbating tensions between water users in the region. In New Mexico, water experts said the Rio Grande is likely to dry up completely in Albuquerque as early as June. A 2024 study explained how global warming drives a cycle that leads to measured flows in Western rivers and streams being consistently lower than predictions based solely on snowpack measurements.

Other recent research suggests drought risks in North America have been widely underestimated by major climate reports, as rising global temperatures bake the moisture out of plants and out of the soil itself. Annual cycles of decreasing winter snow followed by extreme heat are pushing “a global transition to flash droughts under climate change,” a 2023 study concluded.

“Watch out,” said Dave Breshears. a University of Arizona climate and tree researcher and regents professor emeritus. “We have a triple whammy, with areas already in drought headed into more drought and associated with warmer than usual temperatures. Hotter droughts make wildfires more likely, more extreme and bigger.”

Breshears has co-authored research showing “what conditions cause lots of trees to die, and we know if hotter droughts continue for a longer period, we could have more die-off of trees and other plants,” he said. “This becomes a fuel source for future wildfires.”

NOAA needs more, not fewer, resources to adequately identify such rapidly intensifying climate threats that put people, food supplies and ecosystems at risk, he said.

“The large-scale coordinated data that our premier federal agencies bring together to create these products are so important to so many people on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “Many of them are not aware of the ultimate source of this information.” NOAA’s widespread coordination of data for important reports like the seasonal outlooks is “something we won’t be able to reproduce if they aren’t there for us,” he added.

Citing its aims to reduce costs and make government more efficient, the Trump administration tried to fire hundreds of NOAA employees in February. On March 13, a federal judge in Maryland issued a temporary restraining order, and the U.S. Department of Commerce then said it would reinstate employees—but put them on administrative leave pending further judicial review.

The continuing budget resolution passed by Congress March 14 reduces NOAA’s operations, research and facilities budget by 11 percent from the previous year, and according to congressional sources, it stripped away some of Congress’s budgetary oversight privileges. That could enable the Trump administration to zero out budgets for programs and offices within NOAA and use its ocean and climate budgets as a slush fund.

In the past week, the National Weather Service, a branch of NOAA, said it was cutting the number of weather balloon launches at several locations, which could compromise the agency’s ability to provide timely and accurate drought warnings, as well as forecasts for other dangerous extremes.

In early February, NOAA also removed the latest edition of a climate literacy guide from its website. The guide was designed specifically to help educate the public about climate science and efforts to halt global warming and adapt to its impacts. The 2024 edition of the guide included information about Indigenous knowledge related to climate and environmental justice, both topics that have been targeted for censorship by the Trump administration. But a copy of the guide was preserved and posted online by a designer involved in its conception.

“Purging the government of scientists, experts, and career civil servants and slashing fundamental programs will cost lives,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) in a prepared statement. “The Trump Administration’s illegal actions to slash NOAA’s workforce indiscriminately and without cause will only hurt vital services that Americans depend on. My Democratic colleagues and I will keep fighting back in state and federal courts, in the halls of Congress, and the court of public opinion.”

Regarding NOAA’s spring outlook, University of Michigan climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck said, “It looks rough for the western half of the country, and especially the Southwest. It’s been really dry this winter, and with temperatures projected to be above normal, and precipitation below normal, it means that the megadrought that has gripped the region since 1999 will intensify.”

The outlook is bad news for Colorado River and Rio Grande flows, and for soil moisture and vegetation health across the region. Drying vegetation heightens concerns for another bad wildfire season in the Southwest, he added.

“This is what hot drought looks like and what climate change looks like,” he said. “It’s grim and will keep getting worse over years to come if we don’t halt the burning of fossil fuels.”

Bob Berwyn

Reporter, Austria

Bob Berwyn an Austria-based reporter who has covered climate science and international climate policy for more than a decade. Previously, he reported on the environment, endangered species and public lands for several Colorado newspapers, and also worked as editor and assistant editor at community newspapers in the Colorado Rockies.

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