Huge Snow

Snow survey specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Ron Abramovich who has been conducting snow surveys all across Idaho, but in this case at 6100 foot Moore's Creek summit, must think he has died and gone to heaven with the snowfall that has come in 2017. Pacific Coast storms have dumped hundreds of Inches of snow from California through Nevada and the Northwest. "What has developed is colder temperatures in the North Pacific and so the storm track is just south of those colder temperatures bringing moisture through California, Nevada, the Owyhee basin and here in southern Idaho. So just bordering those cold ocean temperatures and we are riding the storm track this year." In February alone, snowpack piled up some startling percentages across Idaho. "Here in the Boise basin, the precipitation was 230% of average and the precipitation in the Bigwood basin was pushing 400% to 500% of the normal amount we usually get in February." Downstream, river flows are high as dam operators make room for what's to come. That's great news for agriculture. "Yes, what it means is that the gates are open. So they know there is a lot of snow up here in the mountains waiting to melt so they are trying to drain some of the reservoirs to make room for when it does, they have room to store more and knock the peak flows down. We won't have any shortages this year so there will be plenty of surface water and that will help actually recharge the aquifers as well, too because there's going to be so much water in the state.