04/13/06 Water Supply Looking Up

Water supply looking up. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Last year there were a number of areas across the Pacific Northwest that adopted water rationing measures. So far this year, the months of March and April have seen quite a number of rainy, cooler days and we did see considerably more snow over the winter. Meteorologist Tim Creek takes a look at the 2006 water situation. CREEK: The latest information for snow pack and water equivalent in the Cascades is looking pretty good for this upcoming growing season. The snow water equivalent, the amount of water within the snow pack in the Cascades is running about 110 to 125% of normal for this time of the year. And the actual snow accumulation is about 100 to 115% of normal, so we do have slightly more snow than normal into the mountains. And the snow that is there is holding a little more moisture than is expected or normal. So again, maybe about 125% of the moisture as usual or normal for this time of year. So it's looking pretty good. In fact the weather pattern is going to continue to be somewhat cool and unsettled maybe into the first half of May as well. So we're not going to see any real warm rain storms move into the area. We're not going to see any prolonged periods of above normal temperatures. So I think that once we get into mid-May, although I am anticipating a relatively warmer than average summer, that we are looking pretty good in terms of the water supply for all of Eastern Washington. Creek also says it looks good pretty much across the entire northwest. CREEK: Well looking at the snow-tell amounts from north at the Okanogan Basin drainage area down to Yakima, they all ran within that 110 to 125% range. It was closer to 100% towards Spokane, but with the basin getting much of their moisture out of rainfall out of Banks Lake and coming down out of the Canadian Rockies where again it's above 100%, it looks good in all areas. And while many of the reservoirs are still not fully recovered from last season drought, there will be some improvement due to the increased amounts of precipitation and the ground saturation levels, since more water will make it into the rivers and streams instead of just soaking in. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.