Low snow levels in Arizona, West portend water struggles

SEATTLE — The mountain snowpack in Arizona is at 40 percent of normal, and the Southwest is in “tough shape” regarding its water outlook for the rest of the year, a specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service said Friday.

Washington state is 112 percent of normal and the best in the West, where the average for other states is about 75 percent of normal, said Scott Pattee, who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture service in Mount Vernon.

The service compiled reports from measurements taken April 1 — usually the peak time for the mountain snow- pack. The “normal” figures are based on 30-year averages.

“The ‘so what’ on this story is that 70 to 80 percent of surface water in the Pacific Northwest comes from mountain snowmelt,” Pattee said.

The snowpack measurement tells utility managers how much power they can expect hydroelectric dams to generate, tells farmers how much irrigation water they can expect to pour on crops and tells fishery managers whether migrating salmon will have sufficient stream flows.

Other states don’t have as much water in the snow bank.

“Most of the Southwest is in pretty tough shape” with a poor stream-flow outlook, Pattee said.

Snow measurements for the survey in Washington are taken by about 30 people with utilities, irrigation districts and agencies like the Bureau of Land Management.

Data also comes from 70 automated SNOTEL stations in the state, Pattee said. The information goes through computer models for forecasts.

The snowpack levels for other states in the West, according to Natural Resources Conservation Service figures, are:

Alaska has around 100 percent of nornal, northern California 61, Colorado 72, Idaho 80, Montana 92, Nevada 64, New Mexico 45, Oregon 84, Utah 66, Wyoming 82.

The service only measures northern California and the state has its own system for the rest of California, Pattee said.