MISSOULA — Montana’s unusual winter has resulted in an odd situation where the below average mountain snowpack belies weather instruments that show above average precipitation.
“This is one year where we have quite a discrepancy between precipitation and snowpack,” said National Weather Service hydrologist Ray Nickless in Missoula. “Overall, our precipitation was above average, but we’ve been getting rain instead of snow.”
For example, the Grave Creek Snotel site in the Kootenai River Basin of northwest Montana recorded 110 percent of its normal precipitation between October and March. But its snowpack at 4,300 feet above sea level was just 45 percent of normal.
The Missoula Valley picked up 8.06 inches of precipitation this winter, compared with its normal amount of 5.56 inches. But it only recorded 33 inches of snow, instead of the usual 44 inches.
“We still have April to go, and we could get a few more storms,” Nickless told the Missoulian. “But so far, it’s been an interesting year.”
The latest readings from the National Water and Climate Center show most of western Montana’s river basins have at least 70 percent to 89 percent of their median snow-water equivalent loads for April 3.
While rivers like the Fisher, Thompson and Yaak in the northwest may already have hit their spring runoff peaks, larger systems like the Flathead, Clark Fork and Bitterroot appear poised for a more common May high water point. That’s because the hefty snowfalls of December and January in higher elevations have stabilized and survived the unseasonable thaws of February and March.
Basin Creek Snotel near Butte recorded 64 percent of its usual October-March precipitation, but still has 81 percent of its snowpack.