I knew about low rainfall and depleted groundwater in California, loss of snowpack in Colorado, and the not-at-all-surprising lack of water in Las Vegas. I didn’t know that Oregon is in the early stages of beginning to feel the drought. From Wired:

Snow-starvation might seem like a PR tactic invented by Oregonians to dissuade out-of-staters keen on moving in, but it’s a real problem. Though known for rain, most of the state relies on snowpack to sate its thirst throughout the year. But Oregon’s last three winters have been too warm, and the much of the expected snow has instead fallen as rain, devastating more than just the state’s ski industry. (To be fair to Oregonians, a busted ski season is a huge bummer.) Without melting snow, the rivers are coming up short, and many farmers are having to rely on groundwater. But even in soggy Oregon, there isn’t always enough to go around.”The way water is portioned out in the American west is that if you got here first you get to use it first,” says Kathie Dello, a climate researcher at Oregon State University. When there’s a shortage, then farmers with so-called “junior rights” get their water use cut off early in the season. This has led some farmers to look south for clues about what their future might be like.

All this comes to a head because Oregon is currently the peak influx of any state in the nation. “The biggest fear of most Oregonians that Californians are going to flood the state,” says Dello. (Not a water-flood; a people-flood.) But the fear of being bred out by Golden State refugees might soon be supplanted by an even worse threat: being invaded by California’s drying climate.