Orographic precipitation provides drinking water for about 50% of the world’s population, and yet climatic changes in local mountain range precipitation patterns remain poorly understood. High resolution global warming simulations provide inconsistent conclusions on how these precipitation patterns will respond to a warming climate. Based on the current literature, observation-based studies are required to elucidate how orographic precipitation is actively responding to climate change in real time. The last several decades have seen great progress towards understanding climate change at a large scale, but local changes remain poorly understood, especially in mountainous regions where the topography is poorly accounted for by most climate models. Additionally, most rain gauges are at low elevations, making it difficult to account for precipitation in the upper regions of mountain ranges. However, we are currently living in a world which is beginning to display obvious symptoms of global warming, allowing real-time measurements and observations to provide better understandings of how the Earth is responding than any simulation. With a strong push to perform more in-situ sampling coupled with existing systems such NASA’s Earth System Observatory and research initiatives like the USGS’s Integrated Water Science Basin studies, we are well-poised to begin resolving the question of how the source of half of humanity’s drinking water will change as the climate does.