The Washington Department of Ecology has issued curtailment notices to irrigators in a handful of watersheds and will convene a committee this month to look at whether drought declarations are justified.

Ecology drought coordinator Jeff Marti said June 9 the water outlook looked good in April. The hottest May on record, however, melted the snowpack much faster than normal.

“The snowpack went ‘whoosh,’” he said. “Now the price will be paid for the rest of the summer.”

The Water Supply Availability Committee will meet June 23 to evaluate whether summer water supplies in individual basins are likely to drop below 75% of normal, the threshold for a drought declaration. State agencies also identify hardships caused by water shortages.

Gov. Jay Inslee has declared drought emergencies three times in the past eight years. A dry March and April brought on the 2021 drought and was especially hard on rain-dependent wheat farmers. Droughts in 2015 and 2019 were triggered by meager snowpacks and hit areas that rely on melting snow for irrigation.

If there’s a drought this year, it will have a different root cause. The snowpack this year was 111% of average on May 1. The snowpack started melting “like a runaway train,” Natural Resources Conservation Service snow supply specialist Scott Pattee said.

Average temperatures statewide were 6.4 degrees higher than normal in May, tying 1958 for the state’s warmest May on record. Records go back to 1895.

The snow at 6,500-foot Harts Pass in northwest Washington melted 21 days early. About a dozen snow-measuring sites melted out earlier than ever, Pattee said.

Runoff spiked in rivers, but waterways are falling now. In one example, the flow in the Methow River in north-central Washington was 179% of normal in May, but is forecast to fall below 40% by July.

Pattee said NRCS plans to release a new water outlook because the one it presented May 1 can be “totally thrown out the window.”

Ecology has issued curtailment notices to 167 water-right holders on the Little Spokane River in Eastern Washington. Curtailment notices also went to 14 water-right holders on the Touchet River in Walla County and to 13 water-right holders on Cow Creek in Adams County.

Forecasts call for some streams and rivers to fall below 75% of normal flows later in the summer. The basins likely will qualify for drought declarations unless rain makes up for the low flows, Marti said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts June, July and August will be warmer and drier than normal in Washington. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center will update the seasonal forecast June 15.

Ecology has $5 million set aside for drought-relief projects.