U.S. Water News Online
BOISE, Idaho -- Although precipitation and mountain snowpacks are at some of the highest levels since Idaho's drought began in 2000, officials are hedging on whether the state's lengthy dry spell is over.
"There's no question the drought will end, but the question is, is the end now?'' Karl Dreher, director of the state Department of Water Resources, said. He spoke after glowing reports of record-breaking moisture content in central and southern Idaho snowpacks were presented at a meeting of the multi-agency Idaho Water Supply Committee.
"I think it's great news there is a low probability of abnormal water supplies this year, but I don't think it says anything about next year,'' Dreher said. "It is not unusual to see an above-normal water year right in the middle of a drought.''
If that's the case, then this year of the Idaho drought will be marked by spring flooding, full reservoirs and the Boise River swollen near the top of its banks as it rushes through Idaho's capital city.
"It's getting a lot tougher to argue we are still in a drought,'' Jay Breidenbach of the National Weather Service told the panel at their first 2006 meeting. "Most of the drought has been erased in the Pacific Northwest, and in general, we can pretty much declare this drought is over for this part of the country.''
Hydrologists backed up that view with readings from mountain snowpack-measurement stations around the state that had analysts almost giddy after consecutive years of below-normal moisture levels.
"It's been a long time since I've seen one of these that had so much blue and green on it,'' said Ron Abramovich, water supply specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, as he held up a color-coded map of the state's river basins. It showed mountain snowpacks across Idaho ranging from just under 100 percent of normal to 175 percent of normal.
Some of the wettest snowpacks in the western U.S. are across the agriculture belt of southern Idaho and the Snake River Basin, said Abramovich.
The agency's snowpack and precipitation summary showed the Snake River Basin above Palisades Dam near the Wyoming border at 138 percent of normal, the Boise River Basin at 143 percent of normal, the Big Wood River Basin at 154 percent of normal, the Payette River Basin at 144 percent of normal, the Big Lost River Basin at 148 percent of normal and the Salmon River Basin at 133 percent of normal.
The only river basins in the state currently below 100 percent of normal are the Clearwater in north-central Idaho at 98 percent and the Panhandle system of rivers at 97 percent.
Snowpack records have already been set in southwestern Idaho at Bear Saddle in the Weiser Basin and South Mountain in the Owyhee Basin, while the gauge at Galena Summit in the Sawtooth Range is approaching a record set in 1997, one of the wettest years recorded.
In the Boise River Basin, the snowpack has reached a level not normally seen until March 1 and last year not until the third week of April.
"But people are starting to ask what chances we have of ending up below normal, because they've seen the spigot turn off as fast as it turns on,'' said Abramovich.
Groundwater supplies may take longer to recover from so many years of drought, said Idaho Water Resources analyst Liz Dobbins, especially since farmers had to pump more water from aquifers because of the shortage of surface supplies.
And Dreher contends regional climate change has created radical variability in annual precipitation and snowfall patterns, making him reluctant to declare an end to what he labeled an unprecedented drought.
"If the climate data you are looking at continues to show a shift long-term, that's good news,'' he said. "But is the drought over? I say we don't know yet.''
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