The official drought category for Washington County right now, from the national drought monitor — with the local water numbers behind it.
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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 21 July 2026
Severe drought (D2) 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.
| 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 | 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.
One chip per weekly map: the category covering at least half the county that week. “—” means most of the county was free of drought.
The category covering most of the county has not changed across the 11 weekly maps shown.
| County | This week |
|---|---|
| Iron County | Severe drought (D2) or worse — 98.7% |
| Kane County | Severe drought (D2) or worse — 63.8% |
| Garfield County | Severe drought (D2) or worse — 74.1% |
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.
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.
Source: Utah Division of Water Resources (2022 municipal & industrial water use; state dam inventory capacities), checked 29 July 2026 (today).
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.
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.
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 official pages
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.
Checked . Washington County on droughtmonitor.unl.edu
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.