Idaho Snowpack Continues To Build

Snowpacks across Idaho are looking very good as we head into the final weeks of the snow season. When it comes to individual basins across the Gem state, most are at or above normal for this time of year, with the one expectation being the Coeur D’Alene-St. Joe in northern Idaho, which is at 87% of average.

Erin Whorton with NRCS said the snowpack numbers have rebounded nicely over the past month.

“We had a lot of precipitation, over 200% of normal in February, so that really changed things after that dry spell in January," she said. "We had that prolonged dry spell in January that last seemed like it was going to last forever, but luckily it turned around in February. And we're also hitting new storms right now and most of the state is supposed to get quite a bit of precipitation over the next 10 days, so it's looking really good for continuing to build our snowpack right now.”

Idaho snowpack numbers as of 03/17/25

Several mountains reported ample snow this weekend. Bogus Basin, for example, reported nearly a foot of snow in the past three days.

Whorton says in the coming weeks, she’s hopeful the snowpack across the state continues to accumulate through April 1st, which is typically the peak of the snow season.

“Once we hit that peak snowpack, then we're starting to look at the melt signals and see when those are starting to begin," Whorton said. " We look for the snowpack density to increase and once we start seeing the snowpack density increase, that's telling us that the snowpack is ready to melt. Then we're thinking about how fast that water comes off and how much that's going to fill our streams and reservoirs. So, we want to see the snowpack usually come off relatively rapidly in order to fill reservoirs.”

Idaho Water-Year-To-Date as of 03/17/25

Whorton added she’ll also watch the recharged of reservoirs, especially in eastern Idaho, which have been tapped very low after back-to-back dry summers.

Listen to our entire podcast with Whorton here:

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