hot springs
Montana’s Snowpack Bodes Well—If It Doesn’t Melt Too Fast
By Kyle Lehman, 5-01-08
Montana’s cool La Nina year has meant that much of the state’s high country snow pack is close to its historic average, but according to regional experts, how long it sticks around depends on this spring’s temperatures.
“What happens over the next three weeks of May is going to be critical,” said Jesse Aber of the Montana Drought Committee. “We’re kind of holding our breath and crossing our fingers.”
According to Aber, warm spring weather can dash all hopes that the snow pack will carry on into summer, easing drought conditions and possibly reducing the intensity of the coming fire season. Mountain snow pack is crucial for holding moisture high in the watershed, Aber says, where it replenishes groundwater and maintains stream flow throughout the summer months. A dry 2007 water year drew down the region’s groundwater and depleted streams, making this year’s snow pack all the more important to help the watershed recover.
“You carry over the problems from last year into the new year,” Aber said.
This spring’s high snow pack is a result of cooler temperatures preserving what snow is already on the ground rather than new precipitation hitting the mountains, he said, and right now the watershed is holding around 10 or 11 inches of moisture that would not be present in a drier year.
Roy Kaiser, a water supply specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, agrees, and says that the longevity of the region’s snow pack will become clearer this spring.
“It depends on two things: May and June storms and the temperatures,” he said.
Without cool temperatures and additional precipitation this spring, Kaiser says that the accumulated snow can vanish rather quickly. He references the winter of 2006, when a good early season snow pack was nullified by unseasonably warm temperatures and a lack of additional precipitation leading to drought conditions in the late summer months.
Ray Nelson of the Northern Rockies Coordination Center says that the spring snow pack can affect a fire season, but the amount of rain the region sees in July and August has a far greater effect. Even so, Nelson says that the longer it remains cool in Montana, the better the outlook is for the coming season. He adds that the increased water in reservoirs and streams from a high snow pack will benefit farmers, and notes that the fire season has already started in some eastern parts of the state.
For now, Nelson is waiting to see how the season shapes up, knowing that in the Northern Rockies there is always the potential for large burns, regardless of the spring outlook.
“You can always make the case for big fire years,” he says.
Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.
Comments
Add your comment below
I have a friend who is going to spend the summer at Heber City missionarying at a big Mormon camp, and right today, he is parked with his motor home in a plowed out camp spot with four feet of snow on the flat, and the first campers coming in a week. The schedulers and the weatherman were not on the same page.
There is enough snow at all the Oregon Cascade ski areas to ski beyond Memorial Day. And these same ski areas have had to close in Feb, March, and April at the latest in each of the last 10 years. This is a 1950's snow year. This is a year the Pacific Crest Trail will be under feet of snow in mid July. In some areas, the north slopes will still have residual snow when the new snows begin in the fall. But this interactive map seems to show way more snow in the Rockies than the Cascades, and way, way, way more than the Sierras.
But, you look at the map, and make your own conclusions. It is zoomable, moveable, just a great site.
http://www.nohrsc.nws.gov/