PORT TOWNSEND — A blast of early winter weather combined with ho-hum spring temperatures has kept the Olympic Mountain snowpack robust heading into summer.
Olympic basin snowpack was 128 percent of normal — good news for farmers, fish and whitewater recreationalists — as of Thursday, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service.
“I think we’re good to go this year,” said Art Gabel, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.
Snowpack is measured by the water content within the snow.
It is gauged at three automated snow telemetry sites in the Olympic Mountains.
The snow telemetry sites are:
— 4,010-foot-high site in the upper Dungeness basin in Clallam County;
— 3,960-foot sensor on Mount Crag in East Jefferson County;
— 5,010-foot site at Waterhole near Hurricane Ridge in Clallam County.
The combined Olympic basin snowpack was well above average all winter.
The snow water equivalent in the Olympics was 211 percent of normal in early January and 143 percent of normal in March.
As of Thursday, snowpack was 132 percent of normal at Waterhole and 119 percent at Mount Crag.
The 650-percent-of-normal reading in the upper Dungeness basin can be attributed to the fact that the snow is gone by late May in many years. The snow was only 5 inches deep at the upper Dungeness sensor at last reading
By comparison, Hurricane Ridge had 67 inches of snow Thursday, Olympic National Park reported.
Snowpack in the Washington Cascades is ranging between 144 percent to 108 percent of normal.
Eastern Washington is relatively dry, with basin snowpacks between 73 percent and 98 percent of average.
Many parts of Oregon, Idaho and Montana are even drier.
About three-fourths of the surface water in the Pacific Northwest comes from mountain snowmelt, Natural Resources Conservation Service water supply specialist Scott Pattee has said.
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
