In Pictures: Across US West, drought arriving dangerously early

Lakes at historically low levels, unusually early forest fires, restrictions on water use and now a potentially record heatwave: even before summer’s start the United States’ West is suffering the effects of chronic drought made worse by climate change. Eighty-eight per cent of the West was in a state of drought this week, including the entire states of California, Oregon, Utah and Nevada, according to official data. In a particularly stark symptom of this trend, which is affecting more than 143 million Americans, Lake Mead – the country’s largest reservoir, lying at the border of Nevada and Arizona – now stands at its lowest level since its creation in the 1930s.