What an awesome weekend!
Am I really in western Washington in the Spring?

Unfortanely looks as if we and the fish will be paying the price for this wonderful weather come summer.

See:
http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/snow/snow.cgi

Point your cursor at a dot of interest and its name and data of interest will show up to the left of the map. Look closely at the per cent of average. If you click on the dot a graph of the year's readings compared to the average will again show up to the left of the map.

While I have heard some have been talking of good snow pack the data seems to indicate otherwise. While the early snow fall was decent the recent months have been poor with most site's totals peaking early and below average. The upper Columbia and Snake what good early snow falls but have also dropped of considerability in recent months.

The snow pack through out most of Washington is below average. In the North Cascades nearly every snotel site has readings of 65% or less of normal and falling fast. Just 2 weeks ago Rainy Pass (North Cascade Pass) was above 75% and now less than 65%. Looks to me that unless we have a really wet summer (and we all know that we can) the flow levels this summer/early fall may be as low or lower than last year.

Tight lines
S malma

Good Point. I was excited with our early snowfall but that excitement quickly waned as Febuary then March came and went. The past two months have been unseasonably warm and dry.

I heard a figure yesterday that we are losing about 1% of our snowpack a day.

,


You've jinxed us for sure now..... I was talking with several oldtimers today, they were worried too.

This will have pretty serious consequences for our glaciers. I thought the Hoh was low last summer, but if it gets lower this summer there could be some spots where the water just barely covers the rocks. Although not directly related to snowpack due to dams on the river, we could see a repeat of the Klamath River fish kill.

It is worrisome...

The Skagit has been running high and hard the last couple days, and from the Sauk down visibility is almost nil due to the snow melt water that's been added.

Drove out the Skagit to the Sauk, over Gov't Bridge and down to Darrington today. There were a couple guys with a drift boat at the Sauk Launch and they had passed on even putting the boat in...visibility was poor and you would need 3" corkies just to give the fish something to see...that or hit them in the head with your cast..:-(

Other than being able to wade out and collect some of the spoons I lost this year, I can see no good from this low snow pack and impending low water condition later this summer...

On a good note, I have seen large schools of small, 1 1/2" inch sized smolt in the river hanging out in rocky frog water...looks like a good crop of Coho (or Chum?) for a few years out.

Mike