Snow is a Pain, but Montana Water Supply Doing Great

Last winter, forecasters were wringing their hands over the Montana "snow drought".

This year they have reason to "high five" in celebration of a winter, that while late in coming, is doing exactly what it needs to do so we have plenty of water for next summer.

The latest report shows we were already building a healthy snowpack in most of the basins, even before the real snow and cold kicked in this month.

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Snowpack started slow

This year, the snow accumulation season got off to a slow start. While there was a fair amount of snow in parts of the high country, winter started relatively warm and dry, up until the last week of December.

Hydrologists with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service say that's when everything started to improve, keeping with the forecasts for a La Niña winter.

What's Montana's snowpack like now?

"Since then, much of Montana has received significant snowfall, however, gains were not equivalent across the state,” said Eric Larson, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Hydrologist.

Northwest Montana was an exception, receiving near-normal precipitation from mid-October through early December. Aside from several storms early in January, last month was relatively dry in that area through February 1st.

The region extending from the Sun-Teton-Marias to the Kootenai only received 30-50% of normal January precipitation.

Not the case in some ranges

The mountains in Central Montana and the Bighorn Mountains were buried in snow through January, receiving 190% of normal precipitation. Southwest Montana and South Central Montana received about 80-110% of normal January precipitation, with some higher elevation SNOTEL sites receiving slightly more than that.

Most of the other basins, including those in West Central Montana, were accumulating snow fairly regular through January. Of course all areas have seen colder temps and robust snowfall in February, so the next report should show solid improvement.

One exception

The current U.S. Drought Monitor says the one place that REALLY needs the moisture is the Blackfoot basin and the Upper Clark Fork. Portions of Powell County and surrounding counties are still in "D3" or extreme drought conditions because of last year's low snowpack and extremely dry summer and fall,