Water Outlook

Ag producers specifically, but all people in Idaho generally will be delighted with what you're about to hear from NRCS Water Supply Specialist Ron Abramovich. I called Ron up and asked him to just give me a sentence about how things are looking water wise. "We got off to a really good start this water year. It started October 1 and the month of October actually brought us some record high precipitation. That helped us out a lot to get some moisture back into the soil and some of them are pretty primed right now so there not going to take as much water next spring when the snow melts. But it also helped the base flows in some streams after the long drive summer we had. So right now our soil moisture and streams are in good shape and our snowpack is just starting to build up. Currently, the highest snow packs are across the southern Idaho border with Owhee basin 116% of average, Bruneau at 95% ranging to 111% at Bear River. Central and northern Idaho range from 85% to 66% in the Panhandle. But what is going to happen in the next few days is that we are going to see some major increases in our water content. We are right in the jet stream, the moisture is coming in and we are going to see some rain and snow in the Valley, a lot of snow in the high country up to 30 inches in the central mountains and parts of the Tetons and that it is going to get cold this weekend. We are looking to be in pretty good shape by next week. That was a long sentence but (laughter).”