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A Look at the Western Snowpack

Mar 17, 2010; 12:01 PM ET

With the weather remaining exceedingly uninteresting in a large part of the West for much of the time through the coming weekend, I thought I would visit where the snowpack sits in the West compared to normal.

From the Natural Resources Conservation Service, here is a map of how the Western snowpack was compared to normal as of March 1.

Really, none of this should come as a surprise. Since my forecast early last autumn that this winter would feature an El Nino, the weather has pretty much reacted accordingly. The Northwest and northern half of the Great Basin has had less-than-normal snowfall and warmer temperatures than normal. Meanwhile, snowfall was at or above normal in the Southwest. Look how far above normal in Arizona!

This is all great news in the Southwest, which needed a good rain and snow season after four consecutive winters of dry weather. The snowpack will go a long way in bringing back reservoirs to higher levels than we have seen for some time, but I will remind you that one good winter does not cancel out four years of drought. However, nobody can say it at least hasn't helped, and won't help water supplies this coming summer.

The lack of snow in the north should not have a big impact on water availability for two reasons. The first is the wet weather in prior winters. The second is that total precipitation, rain and snow, is not that far off from normal. The exceptions to that last point are areas from northern Utah into eastern Idaho, western Wyoming and western Montana.

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About This Blog

Ken Clark
Ken Clark's Western U.S. weather blog tackles daily weather events with commentary from one of the most experienced and trusted Western U.S. weather experts.

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