"After the early season cold air  outbreak in December, the months of January and February were incredibly mild," says Pete Parsons, Oregon Department of Agriculture meteorologist.

 

"Of course, that led to some poor mountain showpacks around the state.  It will probably be a tough year for irrigators. At this time, it appears nearly all areas of the state are going to be short on water."

 

El Nino is the name given to the periodic warming of tropical Pacific sea-surface temperatures. Any cold spells associated with an El Nino event typically occur from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day. That's what happened in late 2009 with a fairly good start to the snow season in higher elevations.

 

It stopped snowing soon after and much of the precipitation in the last two months was in the form of rain due to the higher temperatures.  A winter of below-normal snowpack in the mountains is always a concern for agriculture, since snow melt affects stream flows and reservoir levels, important factors for summer irrigation.

 

"There is no substitute for having a good winter snowpack in the mountains," says Parsons. "If does help if you can get a wet spring, obviously. It would alleviate some of the problems. But it's not going to completely make up for the lack of the winter snowpack.

 

"We have snowpack levels anywhere from 50-85% of normal around the state. You will not make that up with spring storms."

 

In an average year, Oregon will have about 95% of its annual peak snow accumulation in the mountains by now, according to the U.S. Department of Natural Resources Conservation Service, which conducts surveys at various locations around the state.

 

At the beginning of March, basin snowpack in Oregon ranged from a low of 38% of average in the Willamette Basin, to a high of 109% of average in the Owyhee and Malheur basins.  Statewide, the snowpack by March 1 was 60% of average. Since then, the snowpack levels in the Owyhee and Malheur basins – still doing better than the rest of the state – fell to 82 and 79% of normal.

 

In the troubled Klamath Basin, already a site of a drought declaration, current snowpack is at 68% of normal.