Snow Drought

 Snow woes continue in Idaho and that portends water woes this summer with an historical perspective. I’m David Sparks and I’ll be back with a moisture report that’s pretty arid. Ron Abramovich from The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Snow Survey Office had a chat with me the other day before going on a snow survey up at More’s Creek.

“Well we’re hoping for a pot of gold up there and that would be finding a ton of snow up there. Our data’s telling us different and that there’s 60-70% of average up at More’s Creek. It’s nice that there’s a foot of new snow up there but that’s a drop in the bucket from the snow we missed all winter. The snow pack is still well below average across the state, a few areas they were pushing record low levels but this will bring them just above the 1977 and 2001 level.”  Why mention those two years?

In 1977 it was one of the driest years on record so it’s one of the lowest that we often compare the record low values to.

2001 was another low year but it came after we had a decent reservoir carryover so we were able to make it through that year but that started the drought years of the early 2000’s.

 And does that mean that we are officially in a drought right now? “Right now we’re in a snow drought.”