Record Spring Hurts Idaho’s Snowpack

Much like states across the west, Idaho’s snowpack is very, if not extremely low for this time of year. In the Gem State, with the expectation of the Spokane, the Owyhee and the Clearwater basins, the state is dealing with snowpacks less than half of what they should be for this time of year. And Erin Whorton with NRCS Idaho said the two previous months put the state behind the eight ball.

“Idaho has experienced the third driest March and April since 1895.  So, we were only beat by 1924 and 1926 in terms of a really dry spring.”

And while this dry spring is very abnormal for the Northwest, that’s not the only issue when it comes to Idaho’s snowpack.

“It’s also been worsened because we had really low soil moisture levels from the dry fall, and so the soil is soaking up a lot of  that snow melt, and we’re not seeing our reservoirs fill, we’re not seeing as much flow available in our surface water, and so, folks are really being impacted by this unusually dry spring.”

Whorton said the hope is the state will see some spring rains soon to help, but at this point, that’s not in the forecast.

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