Despite significant snowfall in the North Olympic Peninsula lowlands this winter, snowpack was just 81 percent of normal in the Olympic Mountains as of Sunday, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“That a little bit below normal, but I don’t think there should be any concerns about water shortages,” said Scott Pattee, a water supply specialist with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Mount Vernon.
Snowpack, a measure of the water content in the snow, provides vital meltwater for people, fish and irrigation in the summer and early fall.
It is measured as a percentage of a 30-year average at three snow telemetry, or SNOTEL, sites in the Olympics.
April 1 is generally considered to be the peak of the annual snowpack in the Olympic and Cascade ranges, Pattee said.
“We can still get snow [after April 1], but it usually doesn’t contribute that much to the overall water supply,” Pattee said.
Snowfall was measured in feet in parts of the North Olympic Peninsula after the largest snowstorm in recent memory socked the lowlands Feb. 9-10. Spotters reported six inches to three feet of snow in the Port Angeles and Sequim areas Feb. 10.
Temperatures were forecast to rise well above normal this week before winter turns to spring Wednesday.
“There’s a lot of low-elevation snow,” Pattee said.
“If we have a really rapid warm-up, there could be some concerns, potentially, for lowland flooding.”
As of Sunday, snowpack was 80 percent of normal at the 5,010-foot Waterhole site near Hurricane Ridge.
Snowpack was 114 percent of normal at the 4,010-foot Dungeness site and 73 percent of normal at the 3,960-foot Mount Crag site in east Jefferson County.
Pattee said the shadowed Dungeness site has a “transitory snowpack” where snow typically “comes and goes” during the winter.
“This year, it kind of came and stayed,” Pattee said.
The 4,870-foot Buckinghorse site in the upper Elwha Valley, which is not used in the 1981 to 2010 average because it is not old enough, had 84.1 inches of water in its snowpack Sunday.
Olympic National Park reported 74 inches of snow at Hurricane Ridge on Sunday.
Weather permitting, Hurricane Ridge Road is scheduled to be open Fridays through Sundays through March 31. All vehicles traveling to the ridge are required to carry chains.
Snowpack in the western slopes of the Washington Cascades was between 90 and 76 percent of normal Sunday. Eastern Washington basins had snowpacks between 97 percent and 78 percent of normal.
“It seems to me like we’re pretty much done,” Pattee said of winter snow.
“People are tired of it, especially in the lower elevations and in Eastern Washington.”
________
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
