will one scary climate-fueled anomaly save us from another scary climate-fueled anomaly
Madison Condon
The off-ramp here is the potential for robust monsoon rainfall and/or remnant tropical moisture making it into the West. Almost seems unavoidable with the record warm water in the east Pacific. Just saw something similar in the Southeast - record dry areas Nov-April had their wettest May on record.
APS
To me, this looks like a setup for the kind of fire season Australia experienced in 2019-2020. But there’s plenty of time for nature to give us an off-ramp from that future. And I’ll certainly welcome that luck.
Michael Wara
May 2026 had the second-worst May drought conditions in contiguous U.S. history, with a Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) of -6.93. The only worse May: the Dust Bowl year of 1934 (a PDSI of -7.03). Three of the top-10 months for worst U.S. drought since 1895 have been in 2026:
