Region’s Snowpacks Are Above Normal

In the Northwest, no January weather predictions are more eagerly watched than those involving mountain snows and precipitation.

Things are looking great so far. In some watersheds, including the Spokane River basin, there’s nearly twice as much snow as there was this time last year.

But it’s too early to tell if the regional drought will let up in 1995, helping crops thrive, fish survive and hydropower profits revive.

“Typically, a good percentage of snow comes in February or March,” said Scott Pattee of the Natural Resource Conservation Service office in Spokane. “At this point, we don’t make any promises about anything.”

Indeed. The National Weather Service is calling for below-normal precipitation for January and February in the Inland Northwest.

The official “snow year,” which starts Oct. 1, got off to a rousing start. Western Washington got too much of a good thing: floods.

Pattee’s agency (formerly the Soil Conservation Service) will measure snowpacks until April 1. Then comes the melting season, when the white stuff starts running off into the region’s rivers.

Many river reservoirs in the Columbia River Basin were nearly emptied in 1994 to help flush young salmon and steelhead to the ocean. Light snowfall - especially in the mountains of southern Idaho - meant there was limited water to send downstream.

As of Sunday, Washington state had 150 percent of the average amount of snow in its mountains for this time of year. In Idaho, snowpack was 105 percent of average.

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This sidebar ran with story: SNOWPACK FIGURES Here are a few snowpack figures from river drainages around the Inland Northwest, as a percentage of normal: Spokane River (includes Coeur d’Alene basin), 135 percent; Pend Oreille River, 111 percent; Kettle River, 145 percent; Okanogan River, 129 percent; Wenatchee River, 179 percent; Yakima River, 178 percent; Clearwater River, 120 percent; Salmon River, 111 percent; Henry’s Fork of Snake River, 154 percent; Snake River above American Falls, 103 percent; Boise River, 110 percent; Owyhee River, 140 percent.