06/07/05 Rain curtails drought?, Part two

Drought preparedness throughout much of the region is a reality as the Northwest states are using a variety of methods to ready for one of the most dry years projected in recent memory. But as the region received a blessing in late April and May in the form of cooler temperatures and, more importantly, above average rainfall&in some areas between 200 and 300 per cent of normal & the question to ask is "might the rains have been enough to counteract the effects of potential drought, say in August and September?" Scott Pattee of U.S.D.A.'s Natural Resources Conservation Service office in Spokane says the rains might help short term, but with snow pack monitoring stations recording record and near record lows in the various mountain locales, drought is still a word that will be buzzing around this summer. PATTEE: These sites, even with all that rain that we have received & in April we had good rainfall, in May we had real good rainfall, even in October we had above-average rainfall & we're still in the driest five per cent of all the years that those sites have collected data. So when you come back and ask is the drought over, well, looking at the whole year's data, no, it's not over. So that leads to this question of if the May showers brought a reprieve of sorts over drought like conditions going into this month, might similar rainfall do the same? Yes and no. Meteorologist Charles Ross of the National Weather Service says on the plus side, forecasts are showing the possibility of more rain. ROSS: They are leaning towards a better chance of actually seeing above average precip for the first couple months of the summers, which is good news. It's not a certainty. It just means the trend is towards a wetter weather pattern over the next six weeks or so and we certainly hope that is happens. However, that is countered by forecasts that the region will also suffer from above average temperatures throughout most of the summer. And according to Ross and Pattee, above average rains in the form of precipitation for crops would provide agriculture a boost. But as far as boosting stream flows throughout much of the region, the impact would be minimal at best, as much of the region relies on a much depleted snow pack that won't last long given hot summer days like recently experienced during Memorial Day weekend. PATTEE: We've got a little bit of snow left above 5,000 feet. Virtually, below 5,000 feet there isn't anything left. What's left up there is twenty to thirty per cent of average than normal, and that's going to go very rapidly. And that will mean a juggling act later this summer as stream flows remain low, with officials try to determine how to balance water among irrigation users, municipalities, and fish recovery efforts.