Illinois Water Restrictions 2026

Water restrictions across Illinois right now

Illinois enters 2026 in a favorable hydrological position, with no active water restrictions in place across the state's municipalities. From Chicago's lakefront neighborhoods to the agricultural communities along the Illinois River valley, residents can water lawns, fill pools, and wash vehicles without facing mandatory cutbacks or voluntary conservation appeals from their water utilities. This is not a situation that residents in drought-prone western states take for granted, and it reflects the genuine abundance of freshwater resources that define the Prairie State's geography.

The two most closely monitored municipalities — Chicago and Naperville — are each operating under unrestricted conditions as of 2026. Chicago, which draws its water supply directly from Lake Michigan through the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and the Chicago Department of Water Management, has reported reservoir and intake levels well within normal operational parameters. Naperville, served by both Lake Michigan allocations through its surface water treatment facility and supplemental groundwater from the Cambrian-Ordovician Aquifer system, has similarly reported no supply concerns prompting conservation measures.

Illinois as a whole benefits from average annual precipitation hovering around 36 to 48 inches depending on the region, with southern counties near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers receiving the most rainfall and northern tier counties seeing slightly less. That moisture profile means the state rarely enters the severe or extreme drought categories that trigger formal restrictions in arid western states, though exceptions certainly exist and have created genuine crises in living memory.

The absence of restrictions does not mean Illinois water managers are complacent. Utilities across the state continue to monitor lake levels, streamflow gauges on the Fox River, the Des Plaines River, and the Kankakee River, and groundwater depths in the Mahomet Aquifer, which serves much of central Illinois. The Illinois State Water Survey publishes monthly hydrological condition reports that utilities use to make forward-looking decisions about whether to issue voluntary conservation advisories before conditions deteriorate.

For 2026, those reports indicate that soil moisture levels across the corn belt counties are adequate, the Illinois River is running near its historical median discharge for this time of year, and Lake Michigan water levels — the single most critical metric for northeastern Illinois — remain within normal range following several years of above-average precipitation in the Great Lakes watershed. Homeowners, landscapers, and commercial property managers across the state should continue normal water use with no immediate cause for concern, while staying aware of local utility communications should conditions shift unexpectedly later in the growing season.

Fines and enforcement in Illinois

Enforcement authority for water use restrictions in Illinois rests with individual municipal utilities and water districts rather than with a single state agency. When a utility activates mandatory Stage Three or Stage Four restrictions, the enforcement structure typically flows through the municipality's public works department, with violations treated as infractions under local ordinance rather than under state environmental law. This means penalty structures vary meaningfully between communities, but common patterns have emerged across Illinois over decades of drought contingency planning.

A typical first violation in an Illinois municipality carrying mandatory restrictions results in a written warning, delivered either by mail or in person by a utility inspector. A second violation within the same restriction period commonly triggers a fine in the range of $50 to $100. Third and subsequent violations typically escalate to fines between $200 and $500 per occurrence, and some ordinances authorize service interruption for persistent non-compliance. The City of Springfield's water restriction ordinance, activated during the severe drought of 2012, followed this tiered structure, with inspectors conducting drive-through visual surveys of neighborhoods during prohibited irrigation hours to document violations.

Smart meter technology is increasingly influencing enforcement capabilities across the state. Utilities including Naperville and several Chicago suburban systems have deployed advanced metering infrastructure that provides interval consumption data — typically in 15-minute or hourly reads — allowing utility billing staff to identify irrigation patterns that occur outside permitted windows without requiring in-person inspection. When a meter shows a significant water use spike at 1 p.m. during a period when irrigation is prohibited between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., the utility can generate an automated notice targeting that account specifically.

Complaint-driven enforcement is also common across Illinois communities. Most utilities operating mandatory restrictions publish hotlines or online reporting portals where neighbors can report apparent violations such as sprinklers running during prohibited hours or on non-permitted days. These complaints are logged and typically generate a first-notice warning letter. Critics of complaint-based systems note the potential for misuse, but utilities generally treat reports as triggers for inspection rather than as conclusive evidence of violation.

Appeals processes are available at the utility level in most Illinois municipalities. A customer who receives a fine for an alleged violation can typically request an administrative hearing before a public works director or a water utility board within 30 days of receiving the notice. Documented meter malfunctions, evidence of a mainline leak rather than intentional irrigation, or proof that the property meets an exemption — such as being a licensed commercial nursery — are common grounds for successful appeals.

HOA protections in Illinois

Illinois does not have a broadly enacted statute specifically prohibiting homeowners associations from preventing members from implementing water-saving landscaping modifications, which represents a meaningful policy gap compared to states like California, Colorado, and Texas, which have enacted such protections explicitly. Homeowners in Illinois who belong to HOAs governed by Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions that require specific lawn appearance standards — including requirements to maintain green, irrigated turf — may find themselves caught between a municipal water restriction order and an HOA covenant demanding precisely the kind of irrigation the utility has forbidden.

The Illinois Condominium Property Act, codified at 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 605, governs condominium associations and provides the board of managers with substantial authority over common element maintenance but does not address the specific conflict between conservation mandates and appearance covenants. The Common Interest Community Association Act, at 765 ILCS 160, similarly governs planned community HOAs without addressing this tension directly. Residents of communities subject to either statute should review their specific CC&Rs carefully to understand whether their board has discretion to temporarily suspend appearance maintenance requirements during declared water emergencies.

When a municipal utility issues a mandatory restriction order under local ordinance, that order carries the force of law and in most legal interpretations would supersede conflicting private covenant requirements. Illinois courts have generally upheld the principle that private contractual obligations cannot require individuals to violate valid municipal regulations. However, the absence of an explicit state statute means that this resolution may require individual homeowners to assert their position firmly or, in contentious cases, pursue legal action to prevent HOA-imposed fines for brown lawns during mandatory restriction periods.

The Illinois General Assembly has not advanced legislation in recent sessions specifically mirroring the water-wise landscaping protection statutes passed in other states. Advocacy groups including the Illinois section of the American Society of Landscape Architects and some municipal water managers have pointed to this gap as worth addressing before the next major drought forces the issue. In the meantime, homeowners facing HOA enforcement during drought-related restrictions should document the applicable municipal restriction orders and present them formally to their HOA board in writing before any fine is assessed, creating a record that preserves their legal position.

Where Illinois gets its water

Illinois draws its water supply from a genuinely diverse collection of surface water and groundwater sources, a diversity that provides the state with resilience during dry periods but also creates complex management challenges when precipitation patterns shift. The single most important surface water source is Lake Michigan, which supplies approximately 85 percent of the drinking water consumed in the northeastern Illinois region, including Chicago and its densely populated suburban ring. Illinois holds an allocation of 3,200 cubic feet per second under the Great Lakes Compact, a binational agreement governing withdrawals from the lake, and the Chicago Department of Water Management operates two major intake cribs — the William E. Strubbe Intake and the Carter Harrison Intake — positioned miles offshore in the lake to draw raw water for treatment.

Beyond Lake Michigan, the Illinois River serves as the central spine of the state's inland water system, flowing roughly 273 miles from its formation near the confluence of the Kankakee and Des Plaines rivers southwestward until it meets the Mississippi River near Grafton. Communities along this corridor, including Peoria, rely on Illinois River water for public supply intakes, though the river's water quality is carefully managed due to agricultural nutrient loading. The Sangamon River, a tributary of the Illinois River, serves communities in central Illinois including Springfield, where Lake Springfield — a reservoir created by damming Sugar Creek in the 1930s — provides municipal supply. Lake Decatur, impounded on the Sangamon River within the city of Decatur, serves as that city's primary reservoir and has historically been vulnerable to drought-driven drawdowns.

Groundwater plays an equally vital role across much of the state. The Mahomet Aquifer, a buried glacial valley aquifer stretching across east-central Illinois, is one of the most significant freshwater aquifers in the Midwest, supplying water to more than 850,000 people across communities including Champaign, Urbana, Bloomington, and Rantoul. The aquifer holds ancient water deposited during Pleistocene glaciation, and its sustainable yield is a subject of ongoing study by the Illinois State Water Survey given growing municipal and industrial demand. In deeper geological formations, the Cambrian-Ordovician Aquifer system underlies much of northern and central Illinois and serves communities that lack surface water access.

In southwestern Illinois, communities in the St. Louis metropolitan fringe often rely on Mississippi River intakes, while southeastern Illinois communities access small impoundments and shallower glacial drift aquifers. Rend Lake, a reservoir in Franklin and Jefferson counties managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Rend Lake Conservancy District, serves as a critical regional water supply for numerous southern Illinois communities and has a storage capacity of approximately 162,000 acre-feet, making it one of the state's largest man-made lakes.

How Illinois's drought framework works

Illinois manages drought response through a coordinated structure anchored at the state level by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, and the Illinois State Water Survey, which operates as the primary scientific monitoring arm within the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. These agencies do not operate in isolation — they work alongside individual public water systems that hold primary regulatory authority over their own restriction programs under state statutes governing water use.

The Illinois State Water Survey maintains a network of streamflow monitoring stations, precipitation gauges, and groundwater observation wells that feed into the state's drought assessment process. The Survey uses the Palmer Drought Severity Index, the Standardized Precipitation Index, and the U.S. Drought Monitor classifications as converging inputs rather than relying on any single metric. When the U.S. Drought Monitor elevates Illinois counties to D1 (Abnormally Dry) or D2 (Moderate Drought) status based on these integrated data streams, the Survey typically issues formal drought watch notifications to public water systems throughout the affected region.

Individual water utilities in Illinois are then responsible for activating their own staged restriction programs. Most mid-sized and large utilities operating under Illinois EPA permits maintain drought contingency plans that follow a four-stage ladder. Stage One involves voluntary conservation requests, asking customers to reduce outdoor water use by roughly ten to fifteen percent and to avoid watering during peak afternoon heat hours. Stage Two introduces more structured voluntary restrictions, often organized around address-based or odd-even watering schedules. Stage Three activates mandatory restrictions with enforceable penalties, typically restricting outdoor irrigation to specific days and eliminating non-essential uses such as ornamental fountain operation and vehicle washing. Stage Four, the most severe level, restricts outdoor water use almost entirely and may require commercial and industrial users to implement emergency reduction plans.

The Illinois EPA's Public Water Supply Division oversees the permit and planning requirements that compel larger utilities to have these contingency frameworks on file. Utilities serving more than 1,000 connections are required to submit drought contingency plans as part of their operational permits and must update those plans periodically. Smaller rural water systems and co-ops operate under somewhat looser requirements but are encouraged by the Illinois Rural Water Association to adopt similar staged frameworks.

Critically, Illinois does not have a statewide mandatory drought restriction law that automatically supersedes local utility authority. Restriction authority flows from local ordinance and utility policy rather than from a single state statute that triggers across the board. This decentralized structure means neighbors in different municipalities can face different restriction stages even during the same drought event, depending on their local utility's supply sources and available storage.

Conservation programs in Illinois

Illinois offers a range of state-level and utility-level conservation programs that provide financial incentives, education, and technical assistance to residents and businesses interested in reducing water consumption regardless of whether restrictions are in force. These programs reflect a long-standing philosophy among Illinois water managers that conservation is most effective when practiced continuously rather than only in crisis response.

The Illinois EPA's Water Conservation Assistance Program provides technical support and grant funding to public water systems seeking to develop or improve their water loss control programs. Utilities receiving this assistance work with Illinois EPA staff to conduct water audits that identify real losses from distribution system leaks and apparent losses from meter inaccuracies — both of which inflate reported consumption and waste treated water. Utilities that complete these audits and implement loss reduction projects have documented savings of 5 to 15 percent of total system output in case studies compiled by the Illinois section of the American Water Works Association.

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago operates the Rain Ready Chicago program in partnership with the Center for Neighborhood Technology, which provides rebates and technical assistance to homeowners installing rain gardens, bioswales, and permeable pavement. Rain barrel rebates under affiliated Chicago-area programs have historically offered $50 to $75 per barrel, with residents able to claim rebates on up to two barrels per household, reducing the effective price of a 50-gallon barrel to under $20 after incentive. These programs are focused primarily on stormwater management but carry meaningful water supply co-benefits by promoting on-site water harvesting.

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity administers the Illinois Green Economy Network's Water Efficiency Grant program, which has provided grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to commercial, industrial, and institutional facilities undertaking major efficiency retrofits — including cooling tower optimization, process water recycling, and irrigation system modernization at large campuses.

Naperville's water utility offers a free Residential Water Audit program in which a trained technician visits the home, assesses indoor fixture efficiency, evaluates irrigation system coverage and scheduling, and provides a written report with prioritized recommendations. Customers who implement the audit's recommendations and demonstrate measurable reductions in consumption are eligible for a $25 utility bill credit. The City of Rockford offers WaterSense-certified toilet rebates of $50 per fixture through its water utility, while several Peoria-area utilities have partnered with Illinois American Water on landscape watering efficiency workshops held at local extension offices.

University of Illinois Extension offices across the state deliver the Master Gardener Waterwise program, a free educational workshop series that trains homeowners in efficient irrigation scheduling, soil moisture management, and the selection of drought-adapted native plants appropriate for Illinois's climate zones.

Lawn care in Illinois's climate

Illinois falls within USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 5a through 7a depending on location, with northern tier counties near the Wisconsin border sitting in Zone 5 and southernmost counties near the Missouri and Kentucky borders reaching Zone 6b and Zone 7a. This climatic range means that turf selection requires some geographic consideration, though the state is almost entirely within the cool-season grass belt that characterizes the upper Midwest.

Kentucky bluegrass is the dominant lawn grass across northern and central Illinois and thrives in the cool, moist springs and autumns that characterize the region's climate. It produces a dense, attractive turf with excellent cold hardiness but carries a significant water demand during the hot, dry stretches of July and August, when it will naturally go dormant and turn brown if irrigation is withheld. Homeowners who understand this dormancy cycle and allow Kentucky bluegrass to go dormant rather than force it through summer with heavy irrigation can save thousands of gallons annually. The grass will green up reliably when cooler, wetter conditions return in September.

Tall fescue has gained substantial ground across Illinois in the past two decades as a lower-input alternative to Kentucky bluegrass. Modern turf-type tall fescue cultivars, including varieties such as Titan and Falcon, are deeper rooted than bluegrass and maintain acceptable color and density through moderate summer stress with significantly less irrigation. University of Illinois turfgrass research plots at the South Farms facility have documented tall fescue using roughly 20 to 30 percent less water than Kentucky bluegrass to achieve equivalent summer green retention under central Illinois conditions.

Fine fescues — including creeping red fescue, chewings fescue, and hard fescue — are excellent choices for low-maintenance, low-irrigation lawns in partially shaded sites across northern and central Illinois. These species have low fertility requirements and exceptional drought tolerance once established, making them ideal candidates for areas where irrigation infrastructure is limited.

Perennial ryegrass is commonly used in Illinois for overseeding worn areas and in high-traffic sports turf settings but is less suitable as a primary lawn grass for homeowners seeking to minimize irrigation, as it shares much of Kentucky bluegrass's water demand without the same aesthetic density. Zoysia grass, a warm-season species, has been tested at the southern margins of the state in Zone 6b and warmer areas, where it can provide summer color and excellent drought resistance, but its long brown dormancy period from October through April limits its appeal for most Illinois homeowners.

Drought history and 2026 outlook in Illinois

Illinois has experienced several significant drought events in the modern record, and studying those episodes provides essential context for understanding how current infrastructure and policy were shaped. The drought of 1988 stands as one of the most economically damaging in state history, affecting the entire Midwest and reducing corn yields by nearly 40 percent across Illinois's agricultural heartland. The Illinois River dropped to critically low levels, disrupting commercial navigation and concentrating agricultural pollutants in ways that stressed both aquatic ecosystems and municipal intakes downstream.

The drought of 2002 brought renewed stress to central and southern Illinois, with the Sangamon River basin experiencing significantly below-average runoff. Lake Decatur, Decatur's primary reservoir on the Sangamon River, fell to levels that triggered Stage Two restrictions within the city and prompted discussions about long-term supply augmentation that would persist for years afterward. The Illinois State Water Survey documented widespread D2 and D3 Drought Monitor classifications across the central tier of the state during late summer of that year.

The summer of 2005 produced localized drought stress in northern and east-central Illinois, but the 2012 drought stands as the most severe event in the past quarter century for much of the state. The 2012 drought, associated with a powerful La Niña pattern that persisted through the growing season, pushed approximately 97 percent of Illinois into D3 (Extreme Drought) or D4 (Exceptional Drought) classification by late July. Lake Springfield fell to its lowest recorded level since the reservoir was constructed in the 1930s, forcing Springfield's city government to implement Stage Three mandatory restrictions and accelerate emergency dredging conversations. Rend Lake in southern Illinois saw storage drop by tens of thousands of acre-feet, straining the Rend Lake Conservancy District's ability to meet wholesale customer commitments across the region.

The period between 2014 and 2015 brought a less severe but still notable drought to southern Illinois and the Wabash River corridor, affecting communities served by small impoundments with limited carry-over storage. More recently, portions of central Illinois experienced D1 and D2 conditions during the dry summer of 2023, prompting voluntary conservation advisories from several Champaign-Urbana area utilities that draw from the Mahomet Aquifer. That brief episode served as a reminder that even well-endowed Illinois faces real vulnerability during anomalously dry years.

The 2026 water supply outlook for Illinois is assessed as normal to slightly favorable heading into the critical summer growing season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center seasonal outlook issued for the spring and early summer period indicates near-normal precipitation probabilities across the upper Midwest, with no strong El Niño or La Niña pattern expected to dominate the 2026 warm season. This neutral ENSO condition suggests that Illinois will not face the kind of systematic moisture deficit that drove the catastrophic 2012 drought.

Lake Michigan water levels, which directly govern the supply security of northeastern Illinois and the millions of residents served by Chicago's treatment network, entered 2026 in a near-normal range following years of elevated lake levels between 2019 and 2022 and a gradual return toward the long-term average. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Detroit District, which monitors and publishes Great Lakes level data, projects lake levels remaining within normal operational bounds through at least mid-2026 under the current hydrological trajectory.

For the Mahomet Aquifer in central Illinois, the Illinois State Water Survey's most recent monitoring report indicates that groundwater levels across the aquifer remain within sustainable bounds, though long-term drawdown trends in high-use areas near Champaign and Bloomington continue to merit careful watching. An above-average recharge season in late 2025 partially offset cumulative withdrawals.

Water managers advise residents to watch for U.S. Drought Monitor updates throughout July and August 2026, as those months historically carry the highest evaporative demand. Should central Illinois counties begin registering D1 conditions by mid-July, voluntary conservation advisories from downstate utilities could follow within weeks. The Illinois State Water Survey's drought watch dashboard, available publicly online, will be the primary early warning tool throughout the season.

Frequently asked questions about Illinois water restrictions

Are there any water restrictions currently in effect in Illinois in 2026?

No. As of 2026, there are no active water restrictions — mandatory or voluntary — reported across tracked Illinois municipalities, including Chicago and Naperville. The state is operating under normal hydrological conditions, with Lake Michigan levels, inland river flows along the Illinois and Sangamon rivers, and groundwater depths in the Mahomet Aquifer all within acceptable ranges. Residents should continue routine water use while staying attentive to any communications from their local utility, particularly during the mid-summer period when drought risk historically peaks.

Who has the authority to declare water restrictions in Illinois?

Water restriction authority in Illinois rests primarily with individual municipal utilities and water districts rather than with a single state agency. There is no state law that automatically triggers statewide restrictions when U.S. Drought Monitor conditions reach a certain severity level. Instead, each utility maintains its own drought contingency plan, filed with the Illinois EPA's Public Water Supply Division, and activates restriction stages at its own discretion based on local supply conditions. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency and the Illinois State Water Survey provide scientific monitoring and advisory support, but the trigger decisions belong to local utility administrators.

What is the Mahomet Aquifer and how important is it to Illinois water supply?

The Mahomet Aquifer is a buried glacial valley aquifer located in east-central Illinois, stretching across approximately 7,000 square miles of the state's midsection. It is one of the most productive freshwater aquifers in the Midwest, supplying drinking water to over 850,000 people in communities including Champaign, Urbana, Bloomington, Normal, Rantoul, and numerous smaller municipalities and rural water districts. The aquifer is recharged slowly through overlying sediments and is not considered a rapidly renewable resource on human timescales, making sustainable management critical. The Illinois State Water Survey monitors the aquifer through a network of observation wells and publishes regular water level reports that utilities and state planners use to assess long-term supply security.

How did the 2012 drought affect Illinois water supplies?

The 2012 drought was the most severe to affect Illinois in decades, with nearly the entire state reaching D3 or D4 Drought Monitor status by midsummer. Lake Springfield, the primary water supply reservoir for the City of Springfield impounded on the Sangamon River, fell to its lowest recorded level since its construction in the 1930s, forcing the city to implement mandatory Stage Three restrictions. Rend Lake in southern Illinois lost tens of thousands of acre-feet of storage capacity during the drought, straining wholesale customer commitments across the region. Many agricultural communities relying on small run-of-river intakes faced intake vulnerability as streamflows fell. The drought accelerated long-delayed conversations about reservoir dredging, diversification of supply sources, and the value of conservation programs that could reduce peak demand during future stress events.

Can my HOA fine me for having a brown lawn during a water restriction in Illinois?

Illinois does not have a state statute explicitly prohibiting HOAs from enforcing green lawn appearance covenants against homeowners who let their grass go dormant during a municipal water restriction period. However, most legal analysts believe that a valid mandatory restriction order from a municipal utility — which carries the force of local law — would supersede a conflicting private covenant obligation, since private contracts cannot legally compel individuals to violate valid municipal regulations. Homeowners in this situation should obtain a copy of the municipal restriction order, send formal written notice to their HOA board documenting the restriction, and retain that correspondence as evidence. Illinois has not yet enacted the type of explicit HOA override statute that several western states have passed, so asserting this position proactively is important if you anticipate an enforcement dispute.

What conservation rebates are available to Illinois homeowners right now?

Available rebates vary by utility, but several programs operate statewide or in major metro areas. Chicago-area residents can access rain barrel rebates of $50 to $75 per barrel under programs affiliated with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District's Rain Ready Chicago initiative. Rockford's municipal utility offers $50 rebates on WaterSense-certified toilet replacements. Naperville's free Residential Water Audit program includes a $25 bill credit for customers who achieve documented consumption reductions following audit implementation. The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity's Water Efficiency Grant program provides $5,000 to $50,000 grants to commercial and institutional facilities. Residents should contact their specific utility directly to confirm current rebate availability, as program funding is subject to annual budget cycles.

When should I water my lawn in Illinois to be most efficient?

University of Illinois Extension and Illinois turfgrass researchers consistently recommend early morning irrigation, ideally between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m., as the most efficient window for all grass types grown in the state. Watering during this period takes advantage of the lowest evaporation rates of the day, allows grass blades to dry before nightfall — reducing fungal disease pressure — and coincides with the period when soil infiltration rates are highest following overnight cooling. Watering between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. during warm months can result in evaporative losses of 30 percent or more before water reaches the root zone. Nighttime irrigation, while avoiding evaporative loss, promotes extended leaf wetness that encourages brown patch and other fungal pathogens in Illinois's humid summer climate. Setting automatic irrigation controllers to run in the pre-dawn hours is the single most effective scheduling adjustment most Illinois homeowners can make.

How can I monitor drought conditions in Illinois throughout the year?

The most authoritative ongoing source for Illinois drought status is the U.S. Drought Monitor, published weekly by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in partnership with NOAA and the USDA. The Drought Monitor map is freely available online and shows current conditions at the county level across all five drought classification categories. The Illinois State Water Survey also maintains a publicly accessible drought watch dashboard that integrates streamflow data from key gauging stations on rivers including the Illinois, Sangamon, Fox, and Kaskaskia, along with groundwater level data from the Mahomet Aquifer monitoring network. Additionally, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center publishes seasonal outlooks every month that project three-month temperature and precipitation probabilities, providing forward-looking context that helps residents and utilities anticipate whether drought risk is elevated in the coming season.