Low Steam Flows on Missoula Rivers Could Lead to Extreme Drought

This week Missoula County and Ravalli County both went into drought alert status. According to Hydrologist Ray Nickless from the National Weather Service, the main reason for the alert were low stream flows on the Bitterroot and Blackfoot Rivers.

"What snow pack we had melted off so early, Nicless said. "The month of April was the hottest month we've ever recorded, it just melted so much snow pack so quickly. The Bitterroot is running about 423 cubic feet per second and normally it would be running closer to 700 cubic feet per second.

Nickless says that hot days could bring severe drought to the region before the end of summer.

Days haven't been extremely hot recently, we've been about normal with our temperatures, so that has been helping a little bit as far as not making the situation worse. If we get into a situation where we are getting lots of 90 degree temperatures and a lack of any kind of moisture then we could go into extreme drought, but it would probably be more like the middle of August or so."

Even though stream flows are low, Nickless says they were even lower at the same time last year.