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From Town Tools. For the current version, visit https://www.towntools.org/st-george-utah-us/how-dry-is-it
Everyone in St. George has an opinion about the water. This page gives the official answer to one narrow question — how dry is it right now, according to the national drought monitor — and then the local numbers behind it. It is not the watering rules; those are set by the city and the water district, linked at the bottom.
U.S. Drought Monitor map of October 6, 2026
Moderate drought (D1) or worse across 100% of Washington County
The drought monitor classifies whole counties. Washington County runs from Ivins and Santa Clara out to Zion and the Arizona Strip, and the map does not say whether your street is drier than the county as a whole.
This week's map, in shares of the county
Condition
Share of the county
In abnormally dry (D0) or worse
100%
In moderate drought (D1) or worse
100%
In severe drought (D2) or worse
14.3%
Shares are cumulative, the way the Drought Monitor publishes them: each row counts the part of the county in that category or worse, so land in severe drought is also counted in every milder row.
The last few weekly maps
Jul 21D2 Severe drought (D2)
Jul 28D2 Severe drought (D2)
Aug 4D2 Severe drought (D2)
Aug 11D2 Severe drought (D2)
Aug 18D2 Severe drought (D2)
Aug 25D2 Severe drought (D2)
Sep 1D2 Severe drought (D2)
Sep 8D2 Severe drought (D2)
Sep 15D2 Severe drought (D2)
Sep 22D2 Severe drought (D2)
Sep 29D2 Severe drought (D2)
Oct 6D1 Moderate drought (D1)
One chip per weekly map: the category covering at least half the county that week. “—” means most of the county was free of drought.
A week ago (map of September 29, 2026), most of the county was in severe drought (D2). The map has eased since then.
Nearby counties
County
This week
Iron County
Severe drought (D2) or worse — 93%
Kane County
Moderate drought (D1) or worse — 100%
Garfield County
Moderate drought (D1) or worse — 100%
Shares are cumulative, the way the Drought Monitor publishes them: each row counts the part of the county in that category or worse, so land in severe drought is also counted in every milder row.
The water here, in numbers
8 inches
Rain in an average year
At about 2,800 feet on the edge of the Mojave — roughly a fifth of the US average.
160 gallons
Residential water use at home
Per person, per day, on the St. George City water system — Utah Division of Water Resources, 2022 municipal and industrial water use.
91,685 acre-feet
Quail Creek and Sand Hollow, full
Their combined capacity. Nobody publishes a live level for either reservoir, so this page does not show one rather than guess.
Eight inches of rain, 160 gallons a person a day, and two reservoirs filled from a river that is already spoken for. That combination — not any single dry year — is what the argument about growth here is actually about.
The drought monitor is drawn each week by climatologists reading rain, snowpack, soil moisture, streamflow and reports from the ground. It is a record of conditions, not a forecast, and it does not turn watering rules on or off. It is useful because it is the same yardstick everywhere, week after week — so 'worse than last year' means something.
The supply is the Virgin River, and it is close to fully used
Almost all of the water this county drinks starts in the Virgin River system and is held in Quail Creek and Sand Hollow. The river is near the limit of what is allocated to it, and the Lake Powell Pipeline that was meant to add a second source has not been built. That is why the water district pays people to take out grass rather than simply raising the supply.
What actually changes for you when the category moves
Not much, directly. Watering days, turf rules on new building, and any restriction come from the city and the water district, and they can tighten or ease independently of this map. Check those pages for what applies to your address this month.
The Drought Monitor describes drought already observed — it is not a forecast, and not a water-restriction notice. For official notices, use the links above.
The U.S. Drought Monitor is jointly produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Map courtesy of NDMC.