Drought looking likely

In March 1999, scientists could not reach a snow-measuring gauge on Roland Summit, a mile high in the mountains near Lookout Pass, Idaho.

Deep powder – a record 178 inches – made it impossible.

Last week, scientists attempted to return to the site on snowmobiles for a regular check. Seven feet of snow typically blankets the summit in March, according to 30 years of records. The group knew the snow would be lower than usual, but the scientists weren’t prepared for what awaited them atop the mountain.

Dirt.

“They had to turn around. They couldn’t even get to it. Too much mud,” said Ron Abramovich, a water-supply specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service office in Boise.

It’s beginning to look a lot like 1977, which was the year of the worst drought in a generation, according to farmers, foresters, climatologists and snowpack trackers.

There’s always a chance of a major change in the weather pattern, but National Weather Service forecasters say summerlike conditions likely will prevail for at least another week and could stick around all spring. This could have huge implications for everything from the health of farm crops and fish to the likelihood of major wildfires and power shortages.

Rain would help, but in the Northwest, mountain snow is king. With most of the mountains already bare, any snow that might fall is likely to melt shortly after it crashes into the sun-warmed soil, Abramovich said. “The chances of (snowpack) recovery are very slim.”

The latest snowpack readings show the Coeur d’Alene River basin at 28 percent of normal, the St. Joe River and Priest River basins at 35 percent and the Spokane River basin snowpack at 31 percent, Abramovich said.

In Montana, low-snow records are being shattered. The same is true for Western Washington.

The Green River, which supplies water to Tacoma, has 4 percent of its usual snowpack, said Scott Pattee, of the Natural Resources Conservation Service office in Mount Vernon, Wash. The Cedar River, which supplies about 70 percent of Seattle’s water, has 8 percent of its normal snowpack.

“Looks like the Spokane River is one of the best in the state,” Pattee said.

Snowpack typically peaks by April 1, Pattee said. “After that you can get all the rain you want, but it runs off immediately and flows downstream and is gone.”

Pattee said he was in the mountains near Ellensburg last week checking snow depth gauges. He had to use an ATV to navigate the mud. “Normally you would have 8 feet of snow up there,” he said.

The state of Washington could declare a drought emergency as early as this week, said Curt Hart, spokesman for the Department of Ecology. Statewide, snowpack is 26 percent of average. The drought emergency trigger is 75 percent.

The other trigger is the likelihood of “undue hardship,” Hart said. Information will become available this week to better make that prediction, including a report expected to be released today on water supplies in the agriculture-dependent Yakima Basin.

Statewide drought emergencies were also declared in 1977 and 2001. The declaration allows the state to expedite water rights applications, and funnel money from a $2 million fund toward drought-related problems.

“We’re waiting, we’re poised, we’re ready,” Hart said.

The next few weeks will also be critical for farmers, said Randy Primmer, executive director of Spokane County’s office of the Farm Service Agency. March 15 is the deadline for farmers to purchase crop insurance for barley, peas, lentils and oats. The deadline has already passed for many grains. Primmer, who is a farmer, said he is considering some last-minute switches to his crop plan, including planting more lentils, which have one of the higher reimbursement guarantees for crop insurance.

Only a small percentage of Spokane County is irrigated cropland. Most farmers depend on their crops being carried by a winter’s worth of moisture stored deep in the soil. Current soil moisture level readings are coming in at 65 percent in some areas, Primmer said. “This means you’re already starting out handcuffed.”

The prospect of a drought is bad enough, but farmers are also getting hit by skyrocketing diesel and fertilizer prices, Primmer said. “A lot of people are concerned right now.”

The predicted low river flow has Avista Utilities estimating it will be at 80 percent power production this summer, with the remainder of the region’s electricity being purchased on the open market or produced by the company’s natural gas-fired turbines, said spokesman Hugh Imhof.

Although the Southwest is loaded with snow, California and surrounding states are not set up to generate electricity from rivers, Imhof said. “If they run short of supplies, we’re not going to have much to give them from the Northwest.”

Blame it all on a freak high pressure cell that’s lingering off the coast of Washington, acting as a force field against the Pacific storms that typically keep the Inland Northwest snowy and wet, said Charles Ross, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service office in Spokane. The storms meant for us are now being sent to California or northern British Columbia and Alaska.

Meterologists are having a hard time understanding the cause of this strange, bifurcated Western winter, where dry states are being flooded and the boggy Northwest is left high and dry. A similar switch happened during the winter of 1940-41, according to climatologists. Beginning in February, El Nino started to play a role in the dryness, Ross said, but more complicated and mysterious factors are behind the powerful high pressure ridge off the coast.

“Usually under El Ninos we aren’t this dry,” Ross said. “Something else is going on.”

The high pressure will dissipate eventually, Ross said. It could be sudden, but it might be a long goodbye.

“That’s what we’re looking for. We’re trying to see when that thing will break down,” Ross said. “We think when this thing finally breaks, we could get into a more climatologically average pattern.”

No immediate change is expected.

“The whole outlook for March is warm and dry,” Ross said, adding that the seasonal outlook through May looks similar. “We believe it will stay warm and rather dry.”

Last year, an early melt caused many predictions of widespread wildfires. Rain saved the season and firefighting officials continue to hope the same will be true this year, said Steve Harris, fire prevention coordinator with the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

“We’re not going to lose a lot of sleep yet,” Harris said. “We could recover and get some really good moisture here in April or May. Normally we do. If that happens, we should be OK.”

Harris admitted he’s beginning to worry. “This is the first time I can remember Mount Spokane being bald on the front all winter,” he said. “It just shocks me to look up at the hill.”

The region’s forests are already stressed after years of drought and are more susceptible to disease, infestations and catastrophic fire, Harris said. It’s more important than ever, he said, for landowners to manage their timber by thinning trees and culling diseased specimens. Homeowners should also prepare for a dry season by raking needles and removing combustible materials surrounding homes.