Snohomish County's dry spell deepens as watersheds and phenology shift

Snohomish County has gone from essentially drought-free to fully dry in a single summer.¹ As of late April, no part of the county registered even the lowest tier of the U.S.¹ Drought Monitor's dryness scale. By the first two weeks of August, that lowest category, Abnormally Dry, covered the entire county wall to wall.¹

A smaller slice, about 2.6 percent of the county's land area, tells a sharper story.¹ That pocket first crossed into Moderate Drought in mid-July and has now held at or above that threshold for a full month straight, without tipping further into Severe Drought.¹ This is a sustained trend tracked week over week on a consistent measure, not a one-off reading, which makes the month-long persistence more meaningful than the raw percentage suggests.¹

The dryness lines up with what's been showing up on the ground all season in the Central Puget Lowland: vine maples were already coloring by mid-July, bunchberry fruited three weeks ahead of schedule, and goldenrod bloomed a full six weeks early. None of these phenology shifts can be attributed to drought specifically without more direct evidence, but a hot, moisture-starved summer is exactly the kind of stress that pushes plants toward early senescence and fruiting.

No direct streamflow readings were available this cycle to confirm how the drought is affecting local waterways, but sustained dryness like this is worth watching for its potential effects on salmon habitat, the kind of condition Adopt A Stream Foundation tracks in local streams through the season. Separately, this cycle's regulatory water quality checks on discharge permits in the county, including the Everett Ship Repair facility's permit, haven't flagged any new impairments.² The drought, not a discharge event, is the story to watch here this summer.