Winter Storms Help Washington Snowpack

After a rough snow year, the snowpack across Washington’s higher elevations has rebounded nicely.  According to Scott Pattee with NRCS, the statewide snowpack is just under average for this time of year, which is welcomed news.  Pattee said while he doesn’t anticipate the snowpack making big jumps in the coming weeks, it should remain healthy with what he called “maintenance snow showers.”

“I have no doubt about that, and we’ve made some good inroads in some of the basins over just this last weekend.  But we still have a little ways to go if we’re going to bring the whole state up to par.”

As far as the statewide snowpacks are concerned:

• Spokane is at 92% of average
• Upper Columbia is at 91% of average
• Central Columbia is at 92% of average
• Lower Columbia is at 92% of average
• Upper Yakima is at 82% of average
• Lower Yakima is at 99% of average
• Lower Snake is at 105% of average
• South Puget Sound 96% of average
• Central Puget Sound 80% of average
• North Puget Sound 85% of average
• Olympics 90% of average

“Definitely looking better than we were several weeks ago, like at the first of the month," Pattee added.  "We were almost getting in dire straits then, but we’ve definitely improved since then, statewide we’re at 91% of normal, so that kind of puts us in that green zone, if you will.  Kind of that normal range, of 90%-109% of normal.”

Pattee noted as far as the snow year is concerned, only 20% of the season remains, so he’s hopefully we continue to see snow showers well into March.

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