Oregon Snowpack Makes Big Improvements In February

The month of February was very good to the Oregon snowpack. In early February, the statewide pack was 72% of average. As of Monday, the figure has jumped to 116% of average.

Scott Oviatt with NRCS said February was a perfect combination of Pacific moisture and artic air from Canada, leading to heavy snow showers across the state, which helped the snowpack substantially.

“As we’ve seen the last three or four days, the valve has turned off and we are dryer throughout the state and we’re seeing less impact, so the values…for instance we were a 119% of normal statewide snowpack on Friday. And we’ve reduced that number mainly because we’re not receiving storm impacts.”

As far as the basin figures are concerned:

Grande Ronde, Powder, Burnt, Imnaha – 126% of normal
Umatilla, Walla Walla, Willow – 142% of normal
John Day – 147% of normal
Malheur – 160% of normal
Owyhee – 127% of normal
Harney – 129% of normal
Upper Deschutes, Crooked – 111% of normal
Klamath – 113% of normal
Rouge, Umpqua – 113% of normal
Willamette – 109% of normal
Hood, Sandy, Lower Deschutes – 88%

Oregon's Snowpack as of February 4th, 2019.

While Oviatt said he is feels better now than he did a month ago, he noted the concerns remains what will happen during the remaining portion of the winter.

“Are we going to see the continued cool weather, are we going to see continued storm impacts, or is it going to dry out? Then the additional concern is are we going to have a rapid warming period? We’ve had several over the last three to four years in April or May, where we lose the benefits of our snowpacks due to rapid runoff.”

Oviatt noted the peak snowpacks for Oregon generally occur between March 15^th and April 1^st.

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