Snow Has Not Calmed Water Supply Concerns

The Inland Northwest has been inundated with snow and cold temperatures for much of the past couple of months, but that wintry weather has not equaled significantly high snowpacks in the mountains.

Brent Bower with the National Weather Service said their concerns are primarily in the Northern parts of the Cascades and Northeastern parts of the Washington.

“This year we’re getting a lot of snow amounts but it’s been so dry that it just doesn’t have much water content. It looks really snowy so we still have some concerns.”

Bower is projecting supplies in the 80 percent range for in the Upper Cascades with the Yakima River Basin and parts south around average or slightly better.

NRCS Water Supply Specialist Scott Pattee said these arctic blasts don’t help because it keeps the mountains dry, and the snow lacking moisture.

“The problem with the dry stuff coming up is that, literally every day that goes by this time of year that we don’t receive snow, we lose ground. On average, according to the numbers, every day during the winter we should be getting snow.”

Washington State is currently at 103 percent of snowpack compared to 111 percent last year and 49 percent in 2015.

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