When or how droughts might end in different Western places is a looming question. But in the continually heating West, it's not the most crucial question.

"The real challenge is when the recent drought does end, what are we going to do to prepare for the next one?" emphasized Benjamin Cook, a research scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who studies drought.

It's a salient question because large swathes of the West are getting drier. The trends in dropping reservoir levels and shrinking snowpack paint a clear, stark picture. "All of this points to us moving into a drier average future," said Cook.

Sure, it'll rain hard again. "You get one good year and things ostensibly look fine and people forget there was ever a drought," said Cook. But more troubling, even hotter droughts will come. What follows is insight into the current Western droughts, and how we might adapt.