Daniel Swain in Bloomberg: Drought Indicators in Western U.S. Flash Warnings of the ‘Big One’

Summer in the U.S. begins with widespread drought already at historic levels across 11 states. Experts warn of worsening conditions once wildfires start. “As far as drought goes, this is the big one, especially if we are talking about the broader drought across the whole Southwest,” says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Los Angeles. “By a lot of metrics, it is the most severe drought on record.”