Western Snowpack

Western Snowpack

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) is a common snowpack measurement that describes the amount of liquid water in the snowpack that would be formed if it were completely melted. SWE is an important measure of availability of water resources, since it relates to the runoff of rivers and variations in groundwater levels. With that in mind, a reversal of fortunes related to the Western mountain snowpack outlook from just one month ago.

First…. back on January 1st, Northwestern snowpack was running anywhere from 25 to 75 percent of average. But following a month of heavy precipitation from the Cascades to the northern Rockies, just about every northwestern basin has now at least average, if not above average snowpack. Yet USDA meteorologist Brad Rippy says for California, and much of the southwest, the beginning of January, the Sierra Nevada key watershed areas were looking pretty good with a snowpack that was near to slightly above average. But during the month of January, we saw less than half of the normal precipitation falling across that region, and that resulted by the end of January, snowpacks that have now dropped to about 70 percent of average.

He adds the storm track will continue through the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies the next two weeks, while drier conditions persist in California and the Southwest.

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