Climate intelligence for the great outdoors.

As the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season officially begins, forecasters are projecting the first below-average activity in a decade—a reprieve following years of relentless storms—though emergency officials emphasize that even a quiet season demands vigilance given the nation's vulnerable coastal infrastructure. The shift in tropical outlook comes as the country grapples with acute regional water crises: Texas and Kansas reservoirs are hemorrhaging capacity at alarming rates, with major facilities like Richland-Chambers, Eagle Mountain, and Bridgeport reservoirs operating at one-third of normal levels, threatening municipal water supplies and agricultural operations across the drought-stricken southern Plains. Meanwhile, Lake Havasu in California sits at twelve times its average storage, and Oklahoma's Lake Eucha has exploded to nearly one million times normal capacity—dramatic swings that underscore the nation's intensifying hydrological volatility.

The Midwest and Southeast face contrasting flooding concerns as the Ohio River at Old Shawneetown surges to 259,000 cubic feet per second and the St. Johns River in Jacksonville maintains exceptionally high flows of 152,000 cfs, complicating navigation and raising levee concerns in communities already saturated from spring precipitation. Wildfire conditions are escalating across multiple fronts: evacuations are underway near Minnesota's Burntside Lake outside Ely, while the Jordan Incident continues to threaten Central Oregon, prompting the EU to deploy its largest-ever wildfire response team for the 2026 summer season. Federal officials are simultaneously advancing controversial legislation linking wildfire management with expanded drilling and conservation measures, as debates intensify over flood insurance reform that critics argue creates "moral hazards" disproportionately affecting lower-income Americans in flood-prone areas. Outdoor recreation from bass fishing in depleted Texas lakes to whitewater rafting on the swollen White River in Arkansas faces dramatic disruption, while minimal snowfall across the Lower 48—just two inches reported at Washington's Sawmill Ridge and Colorado's Vallecito—signals a challenging water year ahead for Western states dependent on snowpack.