12/24/08 Building the Snowpack

Building the Snowpack. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The first blast of winter has hit Pacific Northwest, but forecasters predict more to come in the months ahead. As the mountain snowpack builds between now and March, farmers and ranchers can expect another summer of ample water for irrigation. Meteorologist Pete Parsons of the Oregon Department of Agriculture says this winter shapes up to be another strong one for building up the winter snowpack despite a relatively late start. PARSONS: The odds are there won't be as much snow as last year, which had an extremely high snowpack. But the odds do favor above average snowpack for this winter once again. Oregon does not receive the summer rainfall that helps agriculture in other parts of the country. Farmers and ranchers must rely on irrigation which, in turn, feeds off streams and reservoirs supplied by melting mountain snow. PARSONS: Water is at a premium. One of the ways we store water here, a big way, is with the snowpack. That's of high interest-- how much water equivalent we are going to have in the snowpack for runoff next year. The current cold snap that brought significant snow to the mountains and lower elevations is welcome, since about 40 percent of Oregon's snowpack is on the ground by the first of the year. While sub-freezing temperatures have already hit the state, Parsons predicts another bout of severe cold in January. Parsons says his winter forecast is based on the conditions of past years when similar ocean conditions existed in the tropical Pacific. He specifically points to the winters of 1930, 1975, and 1990. PARSONS: When the snowpack did start to accumulate- and in some of those years, it was as late as mid-December- they had above normal snowpacks by the time they got to the end of the winter and pretty good snows into the mountains all the way through the first half of February and to real low elevations. Parsons says this coming winter, although not as strong as a year ago, should last well into February and March. PARSONS: Last year was an extreme, where we had a lot of snow in the mountains very late in the year. I would not expect that extreme, but I would expect we will see more snow in the mountains that usual later in the season, more of a slow melt off. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.