Where’s the snow? Warm winter leaves Inland Northwest in the midst of a snow drought

The Spokane area is in the midst of a low snowpack this winter that’s being called a “snow drought.”

It has bedeviled ski resorts and, by some estimates, the region is missing half of its snow. It’s bad enough that snow – while it has lasted – is being measured in inches rather than feet.

For those who venture outside, the anecdotal evidence includes dirty ski runs, bare snowshoe trails and opening buttercups in the valleys and foothills.

Measuring this winter’s dearth of snow is more than 900 sophisticated SNOTEL stations scattered across the mountains of the western United States. SNOTEL, which is short for the Snowpack Telemetry Network, are operated by the federal government’s Natural Resource and Conservation Service through its National Water and Climate Center.

On the flanks of Quartz Mountain within Mt. Spokane State Park, for example, a SNOTEL station has been measuring and transmitting snow data all winter. There just hasn’t been much action.

As of Tuesday, the station is reporting that the water content of this season’s snowpack is at 27% of normal. When stacked against other years, it’s a record low.

Nordic skiers on the black-rated Quartz Mountain trail may notice a small array of antennas, solar panels and structures rising from a small clearing a couple hundred feet off the trail.

It is here that official measurements are made. The station includes a gauge to measure snow, sleet, rain and other forms of precipitation; an air temperature sensor; soil moisture sensors; a “snow pillow” that measures how much water the snowpack contains; antennas to transmit the data; solar panels to provide power; and a shelter to house sensitive equipment.

And it includes a snow depth sensor, which measures the height of the snowpack.

During a late January ski and tromp to see the Quartz Mountain station, Rex Schultz, community engagement manager for Washington State Parks in Eastern Washington, said that although the snowpack was light, there were still plenty of reasons for people to visit the state parks.

It might not be great for skiing or snowshoeing, he acknowledged, but the trails are excellent for snow hiking – especially with some traction spikes.

“I would encourage people to come up,” he said.

What happened?

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Meteorologists last year made their winter forecasts based on the presence of La Niña, a pattern of colder water near the surface of the eastern Pacific Ocean that directs strong trade winds right into the Pacific Northwest.

What they couldn’t necessarily predict was the strength of this La Niña.

“We have some where we get an abundance of snow, some where we get snowfall that’s around normal and some that are below normal,” said Jeremy Wolf, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service stationed in Spokane.

He said most fit into the above- or near-normal. “But we do have some La Niñas where that doesn’t happen, and this is one of those.”

During a typical La Niña winter, a high-pressure systems settles in the eastern Pacific, causing colder and wetter weather systems to rush into the region from the northwest.

And that’s the way it was setting up in the late fall going into early winter, Wolf said, noting that while snowpack was light, there was an increase in early December.

And then it changed as a high-pressure system built offshore of the Pacific Northwest.

Because of that, low-pressure systems snuck milder air from the southwest. There was still moisture, but it fell in sheets of rain that also washed away much of what snow there was in many parts of the Cascades and the northern Rockies. It led to major flooding on the West Side and soaked Eastern Washington and North Idaho, triggering Avista to let loose water from the Post Falls Dam, which led to weeks of a roaring Spokane River reminiscent of May.

“There was too much water,” said Scott Kinney, Avista’s vice president of energy resources and integrated planning.

As January arrived, the high pressure moved off the coast and set up over Western Washington to gift Seattle a streak of bluebird days.

“That’s why right now we’re looking at a snowpack that is very much below normal across the state,” Wolf said.

There’s a chance that snow could accumulate in the mountains during the remainder of February and March, but the Inland Northwest typically gets much of its snow in November and December when the jet stream is aimed at the region. It then begins to sag south into Oregon and California for the later stages of winter.

“So, often, December is when we see some of our most significant snows where the pack really builds up in the mountains, because we start to get cold enough, too,” Wolf said.

He was quick to say that there’s still time for the snow situation to improve. Typically the snow pack is at its peak on April 1.

“But the mountains are so far behind that it would take a complete switch where we’re just getting hit, week after week, for us to have a chance of catching up to normal,” Wolf said.

Now what?

The Inland Northwest will have to wait and find out how the low snowpack will affect the rest of the year.

The region’s leading utility is prepared to meet energy needs despite situations such as this year’s low snowpack, said Kinney, who with a team at Avista keeps watch on the company’s energy mix and potential.

“We’re well-prepared for when we do have a lower hydro year,” he said. “We’ve actually had them the last three years, and this is shaping up to our fourth year in a row.”

More than half of the company’s hydropower is generated by its two dams on the Clark Fork River. The first is Noxon Rapids in Montana, and the other is Cabinet Gorge in Idaho.

While snowpack across the West, especially in the Spokane area, has been abysmal this winter, there’s a bit more snow in Western Montana, largely due to colder temperatures that slowed the melt and runoff.

The SNOTEL sites bear witness to this accounting.

While Quartz Mountain snow readings are at or near the lowest on record, dozens of SNOTEL stations in Western Montana – from the heart of Glacier National Park to the southern reaches of the Bitterroot Valley – are low, but not catastrophically low.

A cool spring and some timely storms could help stave off power problems and keep the Clark Fork at modest levels.

Part of Avista’s planning is mandated by state law requiring that company to stop burning coal to make electricity. Avista sold its remaining stake in the massive Colstrip coal plant in Eastern Montana. The deal led to Avista’s formal exit from the coal business 42 days ago on Dec. 31.

The move has been a major undertaking – even for a utility that has historically been reliant on hydropower and more recently has been investing in wind farms.

To help offset the loss of coal power, Avista has contracts to buy power from the Grant and Chelan public utility districts, which operate massive dams on the Columbia River.

The company also has natural gas-fired power plants and has within the past few years signed contracts with Columbia Basin Hydro, which generates power from relatively small facilities that churn irrigation water eventually destined for central Washington’s potato fields and vineyards through turbines to make electricity.

Add it all up, Kinney said, and Avista has enough power. And just in case it gets close, the company can buy power on the market if it’s economical.

Wolf said it’s too early to predict what’s in store for this summer. But if drought conditions continue, the region could face the threat of another hot, wildfire-prone summer.

The state Department of Natural Resources provides climate modeling and forecasting that notes that there’s a decent chance of precipitation through March. But confidence isn’t high, and forecasters aren’t reporting much, except that April and May are likely to be warmer than average.

This year – according to the earliest forecasting – is in alignment with 2018, an above-average year for acres burned in the Northwest.