Oregon Snowpack Shows Improvements, But Concerns Remain

The series of storms that have rolled across the northwest over the past couple of days have been very beneficial for the Oregon mountains.  According to Scott Oviatt with NRCS, the Oregon statewide snowpack is now at 79% of average, a considerable increase from early January.

“The last two weeks have been beneficial for all along the northeast part of Oregon, and it’s a better outlook than it was.  I mean things were fairly dire and dry at that point so, let’s just hope we keep our cooler temperatures here and keep getting snow accumulations.”

Oviatt said some locations primarily in the northern part of the state went from snowpacks below 30% of average to start the month, to over 70% and in some cases greater than 80%.  Despite that impressive growth, of the 12 Basins in Oregon, only the Owyhee is above average for this time of year.  And the snow that has fallen has been very wet, which is very beneficial for the overall water year outlook.

Oviatt said while the news is good right now, they are cautiously optimistic looking into the future.

“There’s a lot of time left, in terms of will we have a warm, dry period, that we’ve seen in the last 10-15 years?  Or will we maintain these cooler temperatures and keep getting snow.  If that’s the case, and we keep getting snow, and cooler temperatures, we’ll maintain out snowpack and have a better outlook this spring.”

Oviatt said long-range forecasts call for cooler weather in the coming weeks.

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