PORT ANGELES — Snowpack is below average in the Olympic Mountains, but forecasters won’t go so far as to call abnormally dry conditions a drought.
As a matter of fact, average precipitation is forecast for the next month.
So are unusually chilly temperatures.
“The screaming answer is, it’s looking to be colder than normal,” said Johnny Burg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.
Long-range models show most of Washington, including the North Olympic Peninsula, is likely to experience below-average temperatures and fairly average precipitation totals in the next month.
Three-month models, however, show nothing to indicate anything other than normal temperatures and precipitation, Burg said.
Conditions now are dry, compared to other years.
Ninety-three inches of snow was reported at Hurricane Ridge on Tuesday. That’s 13 inches below average for this time of year.
“This is 88 percent of normal,” Burg said.
Abnormally dry conditions persist west of the I-5 corridor, the southern Cascades and in much of eastern Washington.
The Drought Mitigation Center, which publishes weekly drought reports for the entire U.S., said that the Olympic Mountains were abnormally dry on March 3.
According to the Cattle Network, which monitors drought conditions, the moisture content in the Olympic snowpack was 75 percent of average at the beginning of March.
“We got a ton of snow since then,” Burg said.
Winter storms
The Olympics have not crossed the drought threshold thanks to a series of March storms.
“March was quite a bit colder than normal,” said Bill Baccus, a physical scientist at ONP.
“We did play a little catch-up in March.”
Hurricane Ridge Ski Area did not open its Poma lift this winter because of insufficient snowpack.
But with a forecast of a cooler April, Baccus said: “We could still make up a little bit.”
Hurricane Ridge saw its snow-water equivalent rise from less than 60 percent in February to 77 percent by April 1.
Snow-water equivalent is a ratio of the snow depth and its moisture composition. It’s the equivalent of the amount of rain water contained in the snow.
“That was quite an increase from previous months,” said Barb Maynes, Olympic National Park spokeswoman.
However, reporting stations in the lower elevations reported snow levels closer to 65 percent of normal, Maynes said.
Olympic National Park has five snow sampling stations that measure depth and water content.
Of those five, the sampling station near Hurricane Ridge had the greatest snow-water equivalent.
The lowest April 1 reading was 56 percent of average, recorded in the Mount Craig area on the east side of the park.
“There’s a fair amount of variability right now,” Baccus said.
“Overall, we’re inching our way up closer to 80 percent.”
Water supplies from the Dungeness River also are a concern. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service forecasts a stream flow of 79 percent of average.
Conditions were drier than they are now in 1996, 2001, 2003 and 2005, Baccus said.
The Olympic Mountains experienced an above-average snow year in 2007-2008.
“It was a remarkably wet winter,” Maynes said.
“Year-to-year fluctuations are not something that necessarily concern us.”
A moderate drought is reported in one pocket of the state — north central Washington — where drought conditions were first reported on March 10.
Exceptional and extreme droughts persist in southern Texas, and severe droughts are seen in central and northeast California, according to the Center.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
