La Niña is about to take the Southwest drought from bad to worse
CNN
Though summer rainfall brought some relief to the Southwest, the unrelenting drought there is about to get worse with La Niña on the horizon.
More than 94% of the West is in drought this week -- a proportion that has hovered at or above 90% since June -- with six states entirely in drought conditions, according to the US Drought Monitor. On the Colorado River, Lake Mead and Lake Powell -- two of the country's largest reservoirs -- are draining at alarming rates, threatening the West's water supply and hydropower generation in coming years.
Though summer rainfall brought some relief to the Southwest, the unrelenting drought there is about to get worse with La Niña on the horizon, according to David DeWitt, director at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center.