Utah’s wet conditions from a year ago seem like a distant memory.
Drought has returned in a big way in 2025 and now covers nearly three-quarters of the state. That’s a stark change from April 2024, when just 3% of Utah was in drought.
As temperatures heat up, conditions could deteriorate even more and threaten everything from the state’s wildfire risk to city water supplies and growing grass for livestock.
“This spring, we were running low on our water, and our ponds went dry,” Iron County rancher Kelton Iverson said. “So, we had to end up moving our cows early, and I know a lot of other people are having to do the same thing.”
His wife, Beckah Esplin, said the family took the cattle to their high elevation summer pastures a month earlier than usual because they ran out of grass to graze. That will hopefully tide them over for now, but it could create a domino effect in the coming months.
“You're putting that pressure on your summer range,” said Esplin, who is also the agricultural extension agent with Utah State University in Cedar City. “So, what are you going to do when the summer range runs out of feed and water?”
If they need to move cattle off their summer pastures early, that would mean having to buy extra hay to feed them.
Selling cattle could lower those expenses, but they don’t want to do that. For one, it would be a big financial hurdle to buy replacements down the road. On top of that, their cattle have been bred over decades to handle the landscape where the family has grazing land.
Yet, without precipitation in the next two or three months, they could face some tough choices.
“If it doesn't rain and we can't afford to feed them, it's just a nightmare situation,” Iverson said.
The worsening drought comes on the heels of a historically dry winter in southern Utah.
Snowpack levels in southwest Utah hovered near record lows for months. The five snow survey sites in southeast Utah and the four sites in south-central Utah’s Escalante-Paria watershed have already dried out — weeks ahead of when they normally do. All three watersheds peaked at less than half their average snowpack.
Because of the poor snow year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Colorado Basin River Forecast Center expects spring streamflows in southwest Utah to be less than 30% of average. With dry soil conditions, the ground could soak up much of the mountain snowmelt before it even gets into rivers.
Relief doesn’t appear to be on the way, either.
NOAA’s latest seasonal outlook expects all of Utah to experience above-average heat from May through July. Most of the state is predicted to get below-average precipitation as well.
“My biggest concern — and I think also all the producers’ biggest concern — is we are going to have another year with longer extreme high temperatures without a monsoon,” said Victoria Xiong, the Kane County agricultural agent with Utah State University.
She has heard from plenty of ranchers who face similar dilemmas as Iverson and Esplin. Producers are hauling water to places that have run dry and selling off older cows because there’s just not enough grass to graze.
Some farmers are limiting irrigation to certain fields or choosing to plant annual crops, such as triticale or teff, rather than perennials like alfalfa. That way, they’d have less to lose if they need to pull the plug as the drought worsens.
All the extra money and effort it takes to keep operations afloat during dry times also adds up.
“They don't pay themselves as hourly workers or pay themselves overtime,” Xiong said. “So, any of these drought plans that involve more work, it's going to be stretching their own pay even thinner.”
