Parched Pacific Northwest Warily Eyes Approaching Fire Season

YAKIMA, Wash. - "Skies are blue and mountains are bereft of snow across the Northwest this year. And while many people might be reveling in the unexpected early spring, water managers in several states are crossing their fingers and hoping winter will make another appearance. It's all about staving off the dreaded 'd' word: drought.

"Every day that goes by that we don't get snow, we just fall further behind," said Ted Day, a hydraulic engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Boise, Idaho. Authorities are bracing for a seventh year of drought in Montana, where the mountains are so bare that peaks will need three times the usual snowfall between now and when the spring runoff begins just to reach average levels.

In Idaho, snowpack is at about 50 percent of average with the lone bright spot - albeit a rather dim one - being Eastern Idaho at 75 percent of average. Parts of the state already have endured five straight years of drought. Conditions are even grimmer in Washington, where snowpack stands at just 16 percent of average in some places. Spokane saw the driest February since record-keeping started in 1881.

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The Northwest hasn't been this parched in the winter in nearly three decades, raising concerns about early wildfires and low streamflows, which could limit the hydropower supply, reduce water for irrigators and threaten endangered fish. Water managers looked to 1977 - the worst drought on record in Washington state - to find the last time winter precipitation was this sparse. That year, though, conditions turned around somewhat with a wet spring. "We're kind of reduced to crossing our fingers and hoping something like that happens again this year," Day said. Trouble is, the long-term forecast for spring calls for more of the same: above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation."

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http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/1-03052005-458786.html

IIRC someone said the weather pattern was from a stubborn high pressure system over Alaska.

another global warming symptom?

that misfortune quickly follows.

The last wet year we had was the year there were enough cases of hantaavirus to get it isolated and identified.

I shudder to think of what we'll be faced with this year.

I've already had to hack the mustard in my yard down twice.

And it's raining again.

they are 5 feet high in my side yard and falling over from their own weight

but it rains every weekend. I guess i need to put on rain gear and tackle them anyway

and mosquitoes! I have never seen them here and yet this year I have a bunch in spite of turning over any pots etc that hold standing water

West Nile virus will be ugly this year I'm sure