Winter storms help build Idaho snowpack

Wed., Jan. 16, 2008

Associated Press The Spokesman-Review

BOISE – Mountain ranges all across Idaho have received some hefty snowpack down payments in recent weeks to help make up for a water deficit created by years of drought.

State water experts say recent winter storms have helped build a snowpack that’s close to normal in Southern Idaho and mostly above normal in central and North Idaho. Nearly half of Idaho’s 19 river basins have now climbed above normal snowpack.

“Since mid-December, the snowpack has improved tremendously throughout central and Southern Idaho,” said Phil Morrisey, a hydrologist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. “We finally started to see a bunch of storms roll in.”

That’s good news for water users in Southern Idaho, where drought conditions forced the state to threaten farmers, ranchers and other groundwater users with water curtailment last summer.

In the central and northern parts of the state, snowpack is mostly above normal, including in the Salmon, Payette and Weiser river basins.

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