The U.S. Drought Monitor map valid 4 August and released on Thursday puts 2.15% of Oregon in D4, exceptional drought, the top of its five-category scale. The previous Oregon map, a week earlier, read 0.00%, and so did the 174 weekly maps before it. The last D4 in the state was on the map of 28 March 2023, 175 weeks and 1,225 days ago.
All of it is in two Blue Mountains counties in the east of the state. Grant County is 37.18% in exceptional drought and 99.31% in extreme drought or worse; Baker County is 12.96% and 30.88%. Oregon’s other 34 counties are at zero.
The state has deteriorated steadily all year rather than suddenly. Oregon began 2026 with no extreme drought at all and 4.65% of its area in severe drought or worse; on the current map those figures are 24.76% and 64.73%, the highest since January 2023 and May 2022 respectively. Washington moved 15 points in the same week, from 8.10% severe-or-worse to 23.25%.
The Drought Monitor is a weekly expert assessment rather than a measurement, and its own narrative for this map announced new exceptional drought in northwestern Nebraska and around Denver. Of Oregon it said only that there had been "degradations across … northwestern and eastern Oregon". The next map, valid 11 August, is published on Thursday.