The annual climate summary comes from the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado Boulder, a research program that tracks extreme weather and water risks in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Researchers say last year stood out for the sheer breadth of impacts across the region.
At its peak, nearly two-thirds of the three-state area was in drought. Below-average snowpack, limited spring precipitation and record-setting heat combined to dry out soils and vegetation early in the year.
That dryness created ideal conditions for large wildfires, including Colorado’s Lee Fire, which sparked in August 2022 and grew into one of the largest in state history.
Seth Arens, a report author with the Western Water Assessment, said the scale and speed of the blaze were directly tied to the extreme conditions.
“Because you had such, such exceptionally dry conditions, once that fire started, it was able to spread very rapidly, and it burned nearly 140,000 acres,” Arens said.
The drought also strained one of the West’s most critical water sources: the Colorado River.
“It ended up being a very low year for Colorado River stream flow. It was somewhere around 50% of average during 2025,” Arens said.
Low river flows can affect reservoir levels, agricultural water deliveries and long-term water planning across the broader Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to millions of people in the West.
The report also documents other extreme events that punctuated the year. In Utah, officials confirmed a rare fire tornado, a fast-spinning column of flame and smoke generated by intense heat and unstable air. The pyro-vortex formed during the Deer Creek Fire, east of Moab, in July 2025.
In Wyoming, hurricane-force windstorms shut down major highways and overturned dozens of semitrucks, disrupting travel and commerce last December.
Researchers say while drought, wildfire and extreme wind events are not new to the region, the frequency and intensity of these overlapping hazards are raising concerns.
The report notes that warmer temperatures are increasing evaporation, drying out landscapes more quickly and amplifying wildfire risk, even in years when precipitation totals are closer to normal.
For water managers and emergency officials, that means planning for compound extremes: years when heat, drought and high winds collide.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between KUNR, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with additional support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
