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- Monsoon storms brought scattered relief to Arizona and New Mexico.
- Extreme and exceptional drought still cover much of Colorado and Wyoming.
- A new area of exceptional drought appeared in the Denver metro region.
Saturday, August 8, 2026 —The
released its latest update this week, and the map told two very different stories. In the East and across much of the Midwest, moderate to heavy rain fell on dry ground and eased drought in many places. A few areas even flooded. Still, the report noted that drought stayed stubborn in parts of the East, where low groundwater and tight water supplies held back bigger gains.
The West looked nothing like that. From the Rockies to the Pacific, rain was hard to find. The one exception was the Southwest monsoon, which dropped steady rain, and a few totals above two inches, on parts of New Mexico and Arizona. Across the rest of the Intermountain West, the Great Basin, and California, very little rain fell. The report pointed out that this is a naturally dry time of year for much of that ground. Outside the Pacific Northwest, temperatures ran above normal.
The Colorado River Basin.
The seven states that share the Colorado River, which are Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, headed into the weekend with a split picture. Rain reached the southern edge of the basin. The northern and central parts, led by Colorado and Wyoming, stayed buried in some of the harshest drought in the country.
Relief in the Southern Basin.
A strong monsoon flow carried moisture into the lower basin. Southern and eastern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona, and the higher parts of central Arizona all picked up moderate to locally heavy rain. A few showers even reached southern Utah…