Very Little Snow In Washington Mountains & Hopefully It Will Stay There

February saw colder temperatures and more storm activity across the Pacific Northwest.  But unfortunately, that pattern didn’t change the snowpack across Washington. 

Not A Lot Of Time To Make Up A Big Deficit

For the 14 basins across Washington, six have snowpacks that are 50% of average for this time of year or less, with the Upper Yakima leading the way, reporting a snowpack of 35% of average.  Toby Rodgers with NRCS said there is hope the snowpack could improve, but that hope is unfortunately fading fast.

“We are still technically in the season where we can accumulate some snow going through March," Rogers said.  "You’ve probably all heard the term miracle March, and that's kind of what we're hoping for right now, that something can come out through the different weather patterns and dump some snow up in the mountains, and at least get us ahead of where we are right now.  But the reality is we have a short window now to make up.”

The peak of the snow season accumulation is typically April 1st.

Hoping For A Cool Spring

And incase the thin snowpack isn’t enough for the farming community to be worried about, now there’s the question of how quickly will that snow melt off.

“If we start getting warmer temperatures and anything that is up there starts coming off, it's going to be too early, essentially," Rodgers said.  "If you talk to the growers, the demand for water in March and April isn't as high as it obviously will be in June, July.  We would love for that melt to start coming off late spring or early summer.  So, if we start getting warm temperatures now with no snow accumulation, that's not going to help things either.”

Rodgers said ideally, the state will see cool temperatures for the foreseeable future, keeping that snowpack in place as long as possible.

Area Reservoirs Look Good

While there’s a lot of challenging news before the start of the irrigation season, on the positive side, Rodgers says area reservoirs, while not at capacity, have a lot of water in them, thanks to the atmospheric river the PNW saw back in December.

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com