Written by Ryan Niemeyer
As promised, our region was hit with a lot of precipitation last week. The bad new is – as we all experienced – much of that came as rain so our rivers swelled. Furthermore – many snow measurement locations showed snowpack melting or even disappearing altogether due to the warm temperatures. For example, the Blewett Pass USDA SNOTEL and several other SNOTEL sites had several inches of snow, and went to no snow.
The good news is, as of the morning of November 19th, many of these sites have already received several inches of snow from the snowfall last night. And again, we are still merely on the opening drive of the first quarter in our snow season – so many more storms to build up our snowpack. The La Niña conditions this winter should result in a good snow year, which means high streamflows for salmon.
