After a dry summer, Washington’s finally moving into the green again.
Snowpack so far this winter is off to a decent start — though it’s too early in the season to make any sweeping conclusions, and broad swathes of Central and Eastern Washington are considered abnormally dry or suffering from drought.
Soon La Niña conditions will move into the region, bringing with them generally colder weather and perhaps a bit more snow and rain than normal. But the signal for this climate phenomenon is a weak one, Washington state climatologist Guillaume Mauger said.
“On the threshold of what we joke would be La Nada,” Mauger said.
Even an average snowpack this winter would be an improvement over the last two years, which saw lackluster snowfall in the mountains, early melt-offs and hot, dry summer months. Two years in a row, state officials have declared drought emergencies, cities and towns have imposed water restrictions (voluntary and mandatory alike), and irrigation districts have shut off their faucets at strategic times to conserve the dwindling resource.
Snowpack is important to Washington because it constitutes a great deal of the state’s water supply. As it melts in the spring, the water drains into the state’s streams and reservoirs, where it’s vital for the natural environment (including salmon), hydropower, irrigation and the drinking water supply.
While El Niño conditions pushed warm, tropical air into the region last winter, its effects were compounded by the worsening atmospheric warming trend brought on by humans burning fossil fuels.
La Niña works in almost the opposite way of El Niño. Cool ocean waters in the tropics push colder air into the Pacific Northwest. The trend is generally most noticeable in the winter months (especially starting around January) and historically means the region can expect cooler weather and a bit more precipitation.
Right now, that precipitation has been higher than normal across most of the state.
Snowpack on the Olympic Peninsula is 125% of normal levels, according to the latest data from the National Water and Climate Center. Levels throughout the Puget Sound region hover between 67% and 93%. The Columbia River basin sits between 108% and 159% of normal and the lower Snake River, around Walla Walla, sits around 142% of normal.
Don’t read too much into those cozy numbers just yet, though, Mauger said. This early in the year, snowpack accumulation tends to be fairly low, so it’s easy for mountain snowpack to exceed expectations with the luck of a winter storm or two.
For example, if the normal amount of snowpack for a region is 2 inches, then 150% of that normal would make for just 3 inches of snow. The snowpack totals will mean more later in the year when those averages are a bit higher, Mauger said.
Washington’s snowpack typically peaks around the start of April.
The snow and rain so far this year have helped to pull Washington further out of drought conditions. The U.S. Drought Monitor considers just over a third of the state’s land area to be abnormally dry, and less than 7% is still suffering from drought conditions, drastic improvements from the summer months. A statewide drought emergency, enacted in the spring, remains in effect.
Portions of the Yakima River basin, an important region for the state’s agricultural sector, are among the areas lagging behind.
Urban Eberhart, who manages the Kittitas Reclamation District, jokes that he wishes someone could go out and lasso the next few storms to make sure they head his way.
At the moment, the five reservoirs along the upper Yakima sit well below their normal water levels for this time of year, Eberhart said. But optimism remains because there’s plenty of time left in the season and a few back-to-back-to-back atmospheric rivers appear to be approaching in the short term.
“That’s exactly what we need and we need them to keep coming,” he said.
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