In the Dirty Devil River basin in southeastern Utah, readings were at 1 percent of normal, with the nearby Escalante River basin at 8 percent.
In many parts of the state, reservoir reserves are still depleted after extended drought conditions from 2012 to 2016, but the two largest in Washington County were still mostly full.
As of Tuesday, the Washington County Water Conservancy District reported Sand Hollow Reservoir, the largest, was 96 percent full and Quail Creek Reservoir, the second-largest, was 78 percent full.
It’s important to preserve water close to our communities during this ongoing drought."
The district is in the midst of hosting its annual "Water Week," a series of education-focused events designed to give residents ideas on how the local water system works and how they can use water efficiently.
A 12-week stretch of low precipitation during the winter left Utah’s mountains with some of the lowest recorded snow totals in recent history, said Brian McInerney, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service.
"People come here to ski Utah powder, and when you don’t have it, snowmaking has to take over," he said.
Water week The Washington County Water Conservancy District is hosting its annual "Water Week" events this week.
Guests can learn more about the water supplies that sustain the county and how it’s treated to become safe drinking water.
“We hope everyone will participate in the Water Week activities and learn more about the water we use daily to support our families, jobs and economy,” said Ron Thompson, general manager of the district.

But as Texas creeps back into a drought, water experts say residents in the city and around the state can do more to conserve water and prepare for the next shortage, which is always on the horizon.
Wichita Falls’ corner of North Texas was enduring one of the worst droughts in its history at the time, leaving the reservoirs that supply water to the city barely above 20 percent full.
Now, as almost 50 percent of Texas deals with a drought that’s still threatening to spread, water experts are recommending cities implement more comprehensive, permanent water restrictions — like the ones Wichita Falls used three years ago — to avoid the pains that emergency drought restrictions can bring.
A new study by the Texas Living Waters Project, a coalition of several environmental groups, recommends Texas cities limit outdoor watering for residences and businesses to no more than twice per week.
Ayres was forced to close his businesses two times a week during the drought’s peak, and city officials were threatening to completely shut down all car washes in the city for the duration of the disaster.
But water experts say Wichita Falls and other Texas cities can do more to prepare for a future with larger populations and less access to water.
That’s 11 percent of the water the cities are projected to use in 2020.
Wichita Falls currently allows residents to water their lawns on as many days as they like, but only from 7 p.m. to 10 a.m. Russell Schreiber, Wichita Falls’ director of public works, said restrictions like those recommended in the study would cause water rates to balloon as the utility worked to offset reduced usage of the water being sold.
Aucoin said he recommends similar restrictions for the surrounding communities in North Texas.
Wichita Falls in danger of another drought Texas had its driest year ever in 2011, but Wichita Falls was hit especially hard both before and after: Drought lingered in the region from 2010 to 2015.

As of May 1, drought conditions were rated 35 percent extreme to exceptional, up 35 points from the previous year, and 24 percent exceptional drought, up 24 points from the previous year.
Drought conditions were unchanged from last week; however, maps have not yet been updated to reflect rainfall received late in the week.
Statewide temperatures averaged in the high 60s.
There were 5.4 days suitable for fieldwork.
Winter wheat jointing reached 94 percent, down 4 points from the previous year and down 3 points from normal.
Canola blooming reached 81 percent, down 17 points from the previous year and down 14 points from normal.
Canola coloring reached 15 percent, down 32 points from the previous year and down 11 points from normal.
Oats headed reached 10 percent, down 36 points from the previous year and down 12 points from normal.
Corn planted reached 59 percent, down 2 points from the previous year and down 2 points from normal.
Soybeans planted reached 13 percent, down 1 point from the previous year but unchanged from normal.

The worst drought in living memory has hit vineyards in South Africa’s Western Cape hard, reducing grape harvests and adding to pressure on the region’s centuries-old wine industry, officials said on Tuesday.
In its latest wine harvest report, industry body Vinpro said South Africa’s wine-grape production was down 15 percent from last year, and would lead to a production shortfall of 170 million liters of wine and prices rising as much as 11 percent.
South Africa’s wine sector, which dates back to the arrival of the first European settlers in the 1650s, employs 300,000 people directly and indirectly and contributed about $3 billion to the economy in 2015, according to an industry study.
The government has declared the drought a disaster in the Western Cape, the country’s main wine-producing region around the tourist city of Cape Town.
Besides vineyards, it has decimated wheat crops and cut apple, grape and pear exports, most of which go to Europe.
Vinpro managing director Rico Basson said more than a third of vineyards were operating at a loss and overall numbers were shrinking as farmers uprooted vines to make way for more profitable fruit crops or simply failed to replace old vines.
Over the last decade, the amount of land used for growing grapes had shrunk by 9 percent, he said.
The problems in South Africa mirror those in other wine-growing countries and are likely to fuel concerns about changes in weather patterns as a result of global warming.
Globally, wine output fell to its lowest in 60 years last year due to unfavorable weather, especially in Europe, according to the international wine organization OIV.
In April, the OIV said South Africa, the world’s eighth largest producer, had produced 1.1 billion liters of wine in 2017, a 3 percent increase on the previous year.

North China, where almost half China’s population lives and most wheat and corn are grown, is facing serious water crisis.
Since the late 1990s severe and extreme droughts have frequently dropped by and drought affected area has been increasing by 3.72% decade-1 in the past five decades, posing great challenges for regional sustainable development.
Scientists have been concerned that if climate continues to warm in the future, there is a high confidence level that drought over North China will continue to increase.
Thus, it is of great importance to identify the drivers and dynamic mechanisms of North China drought in order to improve drought prediction and better water management.
A recent study published in Journal of Climate by scientists from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at Chinese Academy of Sciences, Met Office Hadley Centre and Beijing Climate Center revealed the large-scale dynamic drivers of the prolonged spring-summer drought (PSSD) over North China, where prolonged drought tends to onset in spring and persists to summer with severe societal impacts.
Their study shows that seven of the selected eight North China PSSD events occurred when La Niña transited to El Niño with a negative North Pacific Oscillation (NPO) phase in preceding winter.
Consequently, sea surface temperature anomalies of El Niño in summer suppress Indian monsoon rainfall, triggering the tropospheric temperature cooling over East Asia through a circumglobal teleconnection along the East Asia upper-level westerly jet.
### Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert!
are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert!
by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Chili and cotton crops could not be sowed even drinking water was not available in tail end subdivisions of Nara Canal causing great hardships for the locals.
Mir Munawar further said that we had been deprived of irrigation water but in such condition we were making efforts to improve the irrigation system by strictly implementing on the rotation programme as now 9,400 cusec water was being released in head of the Nara Canal but required water quantity was not reaching in tail areas.
He said that we held a meeting with irrigation department officers to discuss the present condition and he hoped that water level in River Indus will be improved.
In reply to a question, he admitted that various influential landlords were involved in water theft and they have no link with PPP while administration was asked to take action against them.
The MNA said that through deputy commissioner, we had demanded the government to hand over the irrigation system here to Rangers to ensure stopping the water theft.
On this occasion director Nara Canal Amjad Dawich said that in past 170,000 acres land of Rohri Canal was transferred to Nara Canal but its irrigation water was not yet provided to Nara Canal as a result tail areas are facing water shortage.
In reply to a question, he admitted that Rohri Canal was getting more water than Nara Canal however we were making efforts to ensure reaching the water till tail abadgar also in tail subdivisions of the Nara Canal command area including Digri, Jhuddo, Naokot, Samaro, Kunri, Kot Ghulam Muhammad etc.
600 illegal pumping machines installed Former PPP senator Hari Ram Kishori Lal claimed that over 600 heavy illegal pumping machines installed near Khairpur at the banks of the Nara Canal involved in open water theft and administration was away to take legal action against them and their operation had caused 75 percent consuming the water of Nara Canal.
He was talking to this scribe here on Sunday.
He demanded the Sindh chief minister to take notice of above illegal pumping machines and stop their illegal function of water stealing openly to ensure proper water supply in tail end areas of Nara Canal command area and also deployed there Rangers to stop water theft.

The Yeoval farming family has already taken the Government’s advice to drought-proof their property, but even with the measures in place they are running out of hay and grain and are ineligible for freight subsidies.
Queensland’s in drought, Victoria, South Australia… all these states are having the same issues but no-one is trying to save these breeding stock.” The Haycocks no longer have any commercial cows left, as they had to sell them all.
That’s the reality.” Ms Haycock said it costs them $10,000 per week to keep stock going, but there is only so much money a farmer has in the bank before it runs out.
“All in all they (the government) need to acknowledge the drought and bring back the subsidies for farmers.” Another issues farmers are facing was the drop in cattle market prices.
The price of cattle has halved in the last 6-8 weeks,” she said.
The Haycock’s had over 600 Red Angus cattle, but now only have 150 breeding stock left.
“There’s major grain shortage in NSW at the moment.” Ms Haycock said they can no longer find grain to purchase until July because farmers are offloading so many cows, which puts them into a different tax bracket.
“The government is taxing these farmers massive amounts to offload their grain at the moment so they’ll wait until next years tax and they’ll start selling in June/July.” Read more: Ms Haycock said it was one hurdle after another, including the hay prices which she says has “quadrupled in our area.” “We can’t find many bales of hay in NSW that is decent quality for under $200/bale.
Nowhere to be found.” Ms Haycock said this is the biggest drought since 1982 and that no farmers can prepare for a drought any longer than 16 to 18 months.
“We didn’t sell any hay or grain (in that time) we stocked the whole lot we had.

If normal forage growth is absent or significantly delayed, cattle producers will face some critical decisions rather quickly in the next few weeks.
Producers need to develop drought management plans now to survive in the face of a potentially extended drought that threatens the entire growing season.
One strategy is simply to hunker down, try to hold on to everything, and acquire feed resources to try to skimp animals through the drought.
The sooner a producer can evaluate and inventory resources, the more opportunity will exist to make decisions rather having decisions forced on them.
Additionally, it’s important to evaluate forage and feed resources available today, including standing forage, hay and other feed resources.
When animal numbers can no longer be maintained it is important to remember that liquidation is not an all or nothing proposition.
Access Farm Management Resources Online The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service developed and catalogued farm management resources on a variety of financial, production, marketing, and risk management topics.
One current example of these resources is the Dealing with Financial Stress video.
He discusses ways to diagnose a farm business problem and how to distinguish if the financial stress is short term or long term.
To find this video and additional resources on farm stress, go to: http://agecon.okstate.edu/efarmmanagement/stress.asp.

Water use was (and still is) restricted to 50 litres per person per day.
“It was the most talked about thing in Cape Town for months when it needed to be,” says Priya Reddy, the city’s communication director.
“It was not a pretty solution, but it was not a pretty problem.” Cape Town’s water use dropped from 600m litres per day in mid 2017 to 507m litres per day at the end of April.
The Western Cape’s multi-pronged response to its water crisis – from farming innovations to reducing urban water use to diversifying water supply sources – could serve as a blueprint for cities that find themselves, like Cape Town, looking at near-empty dams.
“We have pushed the limits far more than most other cities,” says Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson, who is in charge of the city’s water crisis response.
“This is the one that makes me the most depressed,” says Derick van Zyl pointing to a long row of parched trees in his apple orchard.
Esperanto is one of hundreds of fruit farms in South Africa’s Western Cape province that has had to get creative to cope with the drought.
Neilson, the deputy mayor, says the decision to call off Day Zero came down to transparency.
Though Day Zero is out of the immediate picture, the major dams that supply water to the Western Cape are still only about 20% full.
“When somebody first tells you about it, you think it’s a crazy idea,” says Nick Sloane, a ship salvager who has been pitching the idea of the iceberg plan.

Streaks are made to be broken, and the latest drought “streak” ends on a bit of a technicality after the latest U.S. Drought Monitor updates were released May 3.
The streak in question revolves around the percentage of the U.S. covered in drought on a week-to-week basis.
This percentage peaked in late January, hitting a multiyear high of more than 67%, only to fall for 12 consecutive weeks afterward, all the way down to 42.49% as of April 24.
The current map still showcases an ugly band of dark red across the Southern Plains and Southwest, indicating areas categorized as D3 (extreme) or D4 (exceptional drought – the most severe two categories.
In Oklahoma, more than a third (34.8%) of the state is suffering from D3 or D4 drought.
The Southern Plains did undergo some light improvements last week, according to David Simeral, a climatologist with the Desert Research Institute in Nevada.
“In the southern Plains, light shower activity provided some minor relief to dry pasture and rangelands as well as helped to reduce wildlife danger,” he says.
“In Texas, some isolated heavy rainfall activity brought relief to the western Panhandle and Trans-Pecos region.” Some areas further west also received some drought-quenching rainfall last week, but they didn’t help some of the most direly affected areas, Simeral says.
Looking ahead, the latest seven-day cumulative precipitation maps from NOAA suggest plenty of more moisture will reach the eastern half of the country over the next week, with some much-needed moisture arriving in parts of the Southern Plains as well.
Stay current on local forecast information and more than 20 tailored agricultural weather maps at www.farmfutures.com/weather.