HELENA — A warm spring has nearly depleted what little snowpack Montana saw this year, draining the state of water necessary to combat worsening drought conditions, officials said Thursday.
State and federal officials who monitor water supplies said at a monthly meeting that reservoirs now at capacity could easily come up short for agricultural use and wildfire fighting this summer.
The Governor’s Drought and Water Supply Advisory Committee emphasized that the snowpack this year in Montana was less than half of average and most of it has disappeared.
“It all melted too quickly,” said Lucas Zukiewicz, a U.S. Department of Agriculture water supply specialist. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but everybody knows that it’s happening.”
John Tubbs, director of the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, said he was most concerned by surface-water supply maps presented at the meeting.
Data collected by the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service shows surface water in Montana plummeted from near-average and slightly dry levels in March to moderate and extremely dry conditions in the southwest part of the state by May 1.
U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist Wayne Berkas said Montana has seen average precipitation levels this year, but it came too late and in the fleeting form of rain.
“If we do continue to get some precip, it’ll probably make all the difference,” Clayton Jordan of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Montana office said.
The group was optimistic about the possibility of rain in the state’s north-central and southeastern areas in May and June — typically Montana’s wettest months.
But National Weather Service hydrologist Gina Loss cautioned against reversing drought advisories based on one event such as a storm that doused parts of southern Montana in the past week.
“It does buy you a little bit of time, but it’s not nearly as much as people think,” Loss said.
Eric Sommer, a USDA state statistician, presented a silver lining during the committee’s otherwise grim drought outlook. Sommer said the early melting and above-average stream flows in March and April allowed farmers to plant and move herds to summer fields ahead of schedule.
“We had reports of producers who are usually just getting their tractors out of the barns — they’re done,” Sommer said. “They made progress while they could.”
Tubbs said the good agricultural news will likely be short-lived.