2019 Expected To Be A Dry Year For North Central Washington

While much of the region is counting down the days to more sunshine and warmer weather, North Central Washington may wish to push spring off a little while longer.

Jeff Marti with the Washington department of Ecology says despite record snow accumulations across the Northwest this February, the Methow and Okanogan watersheds face a 78% likelihood of drought conditions later this year.

“And even through we’ve had extraordinarily cold temperatures, they haven’t been getting a lot of precipitation, so they’ve missed out, they’re a little bit low on snowpack, and also low on soil moisture, which also contributes to runoff.”

Marti went on to say that some area of North Central Washington are dryer now than what we saw in March 2015.  And while its too early to say with certainty, Marti added he would not be surprised if there is water rationing of some kind before the irrigation season is up.

“Junior water rights, those people will maybe be asked to stop divert or taking water from the river, so we can protect the rights that were established first.”

Currently, the Upper Columbia Basin, which includes Okanogan, Ferry and portions of Stevens county has the lowest snowpack in eastern Washington.

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