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Nine States that are Going Dry 04-28-15 | News

Nine States that are Going Dry

A national news agency recently ranked the states that are most at risk of dire economic, social and environmental consequences from the ongoing drought.

There are nine states "running out of water" according to a recent article by 24/7 Wall St., a financial news and opinion company. And while most of the states come as no surprise, there are a few that do.

The digital content provider based its findings on the U.S. Drought Monitor's drought levels of the week ended April 14: considering the percentage of each state's land area suffering severe to exceptional drought, the drought levels during the same week in 2014, peak drought levels for 2014 in each state, and the number of people affected by each level of drought.

California came in at number one and Nevada was number two. Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma also made the list as one would expect. But so did Oregon, which in February had 77 percent of its land area in severe to exceptional drought levels. That made for a thin snowpack, putting almost the whole state in in an abnormally dry drought, and more than 49 percent of it in a severe to exceptional drought, trailing only four other states.

And in spite of all the rivers crisscrossing it, including the Arkansas, and with the Missouri River on its northeast border, Kansas also made the list. Farmers are taking such a big hit that the USDA designated 27 counties as primary disaster areas and state Governor Brownback declared drought emergencies in 56 counties.

A minor surprise, except to those who live there, is Colorado, whose snowpack was also very disappointing this year. Due in part to that, severe to exceptional drought conditions affected nearly 40 percent of the state. Its high last year was 19 percent.

And suffering the same fate is its neighbor Utah, which came in a surprising third on the list. The precipitation in the state was 47 percent of average, and the drought is afflicting 53.2 percent of its area and an estimated 2.1 million people.