World rivers are getting drier

As mentioned last week, the summer of 2026 has been one of wide extremes with drought, heat, wildfires and floods across the Northern Hemisphere. The long-term lack of precipitation across many regions in the U.S., especially in the Southwest, along in other parts of the world, has led to significant drying of major rivers.

One of the major rivers in the U.S. is the Colorado River, which supplies critical water supplies to Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Southern California and parts of northern Mexico. Since 2000, a “megadrought,” combined with warming, a reduced snowpack and higher demand have been stressing rivers and lakes. Lake Powell has reached record low levels this month. It’s currently only 30 feet above the water level needed for hydropower generation to 40 million people. Another large body of water, Lake Mead, the man-made reservoir along the Nevada-Arizona border has dropped to approximately 27% of capacity.

Despite the long-term dryness, there is an increasing chance of much-needed moisture later in the fall and winter season across the southwestern portion of the country. We currently have a warmer than normal sea-surface temperature event, El Nino, gaining strength in the waters of the south-central Pacific Ocean. According to climatereanalyzer.com, ocean waters along the Equatorial regions are about 4 degrees Fahrenheit above average. Forecasters are indicating this new El Nino will likely be “super-strong” in the coming months. Global air flows patterns often change during an El Nino that led to a strengthening of the sub-tropical jet stream. Therefore, the southern U.S., including Southern California could experience flooding rains by this winter.

Multiple heatwaves and prolonged dryness this spring and summer in central and eastern Europe have lowered water levels Europe’s second largest river, the Danube. The river flows about 1,770 miles through 10 countries before reaching the Black Sea. However, it is more accurate to say that the Danube is severely depleted which has exposed parts of its riverbed, rather than that the entire river is drying up.

In Budapest, the Danube River fell to approximately 4 inches at one point in August, which is far below the previous record low of 13 inches set back in 2018.  At the Romanian border, it’s been reported that the river flow was only about 35% of the normal July flow.

The lowering of the Danube’s water level has become one of the most dramatic consequences. Romania’s Cernavoda nuclear power plant depends on Danube water for cooling. Both of its 706-MW reactors were forced offline because the river became too low for normal cooling operations.

Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant has faced similar problems. On Aug. 19, the plant was operating at only about 25% capacity as extremely low Danube levels threatened its cooling-water supply. Emergency engineering work increased the local water level, allowing operators to begin restoring generation. Large sections of the Danube have become difficult or impossible for normally loaded commercial vessels to navigate. Ships have had to reduce their cargoes, wait for better conditions, or avoid particularly shallow sections.

The extremely low water in the Danube has exposed previously submerged objects, including World War II shipwrecks near the Serbian-Romanian border. In late July, the record-low water levels on the Danube exposed prehistoric bones near a village in northeastern Bulgaria. Experts from a regional historical museum examined the remains and concluded that they very likely belonged to a woolly mammoth, a species from our last Ice Age.

Other major rivers that are experiencing serious shortages include the Rio Grande in the U.S. and Mexico, the Yellow River in China, the Indus River in Pakistan and India, The Amu Darya in Central Asia, the Ganges in India and Bangladesh and the Murray River in Australia. In addition to drier conditions, most of the rivers have lowered due to excess water extraction for irrigation and population demands.

Through the first 8 months of 2026, moisture totals across the Inland Northwest have been much below normal. According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor, the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene area is currently under severe drought conditions. In fact, about 70% of the U.S. has experiencing abnormally dry to extreme drought conditions.

Coeur d’Alene’s driest year was in 1929 with 15.19 inches. Our total precipitation for the season to date at Cliff Harris’s station is about 9 inches in Coeur d’Alene. From Jan. 1 through Aug. 31, 1929, total precipitation was 9.75 inches. With this new drought pattern and a strong El Nino, it’s possible that we could challenge the driest year in history. However, there has been a trend within the last 15 years that a dry summer in our region is often followed by good moisture totals during the fall. We believe this trend may continue in 2026, but with a very strong El Nino, we’ll have to wait and see. In 1929, conditions stayed very dry until December 8. Then, the skies opened up, and 3.43 inches of rain and melted snow fell in a 10-day period.

The long-range computer models are still indicating that the strong ridge of high pressure that has been dominating the western U.S. will remain mostly intact into early September. Therefore, the drier than normal weather pattern will continue.

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Contact Randy Mann at [email protected].