Snowpack, warm spring suggest continued drought

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

By Jake Nichols

Jackson Hole, WY---It’s as customary to Wyoming as the wind, yet it is complex and difficult to define. It has no clear beginning, no clear end.

Tree ring analysis reveals it stalled the advance of Spanish conquistadors in the late 16th century and doomed the Anasazi settlements of the Southwest.

And don’t look now, but Wyoming is stuck in the middle of another one.

Drought cycles are routine throughout the West. Most experts put the Cowboy State in year seven of the latest drought phase, which hit close to home in 2002, 2004 and 2005, when water levels at Jackson Lake were so low that boat launch activity at Colter Bay was suspended. Previous notable drought eras of the 1900s include 1929-1942, 1948-1962 and 1976-1982.

The new millennium began with then-Governor Jim Geringer assembling the Wyoming Drought Task Force in response to emergency drought disaster declarations issued by Fremont County.

The task force works closely with ranchers/farmers, land resource managers and wildfire agencies in establishing protocol concerning the measuring of drought stages and policies regarding the declaration of drought emergencies and potential water rationing.

What causes drought and what alleviates it are fairly straightforward. Summers in Wyoming are expected to be hot and dry, but summer-like weather in spring, combined with low snow pack winters, is a deadly recipe.

“If we get a normal or above-normal snow pack, then will refill the reservoirs,” meteorologist Jim Woodmencey explained.

“But the weather we get in the spring determines how quickly that might run off or evaporate.”

For instance, last winter’s snow pack in the Snake River drainage was 113 percent of average in March, but, due to a hot and windy spring, it was all but gone by May.

“In order to replenish ground water and get good runoff, you want a gradual melt-freeze cycle,” Woodmencey says.

Snow pack is measured both in total inches and water content. The benchmark is the average over the last 30 years.

Currently, statewide snow pack is at 80 percent of average, with the Snake River drainage showing 76 percent.

A warm, dry spring could further jeopardize water holdings like Jackson Lake and Palisades Reservoir, and, in conjunction with contractual obligations with downstream water rights leasers in Idaho, could beach Jackson Hole water recreationists again.

And then there’s the fire danger. While not causing fire danger to be elevated on its own, drought conditions increase the likelihood that wildfires will burn bigger and longer than fires occurring during periods of non-drought, according to the Wyoming Drought Task Force.

Indeed, fire activity has steadily increased in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana since 2000.

The National Research Council – a nonprofit, advisory institute to the federal government – paints a dire future for the ever-growing and thirsty population of the entire West, claiming “future droughts may be longer and more severe because of a regional warming trend that shows no signs of dissipating,” and “coping with water shortages is becoming more difficult because of rapid population growth, and technology and conservation will not provide a panacea for dealing with limited water supplies in the long run.”
Photo: Jackson Lake in 2001.

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Snowpack, warm spring suggest continued drought | Planet JH News Article: General Environment

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