Water Levels This Summer Could Be Slim

We are having the same here in Utah , it's been a very dry winter . Hard to say what the summer will bring .
 
Oh brother. Yeah we really need to “moisten the soil” with rain right now. :ROFLMAO:
 
For precipitaiton for the water year, here in the Northwest all basins are pretty close or slightly above the 1991-2020 median value. For Snow water equivalent, for the water year the outlook is somewhere between horrible and ghastly in the Cascades/Coast Ranges, but just pretty dry (66% or higher) in most of the northern Rockies. For those of us reliant on groundwater, all conditions point towards a good recharge year so lakes/small water and spring fed creeks will be okay to fine most of the year. Snow reliant systems? You're screwed. Better hope they filled your reservoirs by the end of December.

Oh, and FYI, south of here it's worse. Some of the Sierras look okay but everywhere else south of SLC is very, very dry.
 
Paige said:
cliffmass.blogspot.com

The Most Valuable Precipitation of the Year

This blog provides updated forecasts and comments on current weather or other topics
cliffmass.blogspot.com cliffmass.blogspot.com
Click to expand...
[Rant follows.]. Cliff Mass is a tenured professor at UW, but his perspective is often VERY incomplete / biased (especially if he can get a dig at the Seattle Times or NPR) for an "objective scientist". Last spring, in several blogs, he significantly downplayed drought possibilities in the Yakima system (see here for example), largely for the same reasons as his recent blog for summer 2026. An examination of the actual data proves that Professor Mass' predictions were far F*#$*ing wrong!!!! Several sources record that by the end of summer, Yakima reservoir water levels were HISTORICALLY low (see here and here and here). As a result non-senior water rights holders received only 40% of their allotment. Yakima river flows were half of the long-term median from July through November 2025 (see here) and water temperatures were much warmer than is typical late in the summer (see here, albeit from near Richland). I fished the Canyon for a week in October 2025 and it was lower than I have ever seen it during this period. In addition to low flows and warm water, huge cobble shallows that should have been producing algae to feed stream insects and then trout were high and dry. Loss of productivity has consequences.
Reservoirs are actually managed by humans who employ intelligent strategies based on rainfall and snowpack. Unlike California where reservoirs hold multiple years of water, Washington reservoirs typically hold far less than a full year of water. The balance comes from snowmelt. Reservoir levels are impacted by 1) precipitation and 2) decisions by managers to release vs. store water. If I were managing a system of reservoirs, I would keep my reservoir levels low if snowpack was above average. That would give me more scope to store water and reduce the risk of downstream flooding if we experienced a Pineapple Express that triggered high volumes of meltwater. In a year with low snowpack (like at present), I would store as much water as possible while maintaining whatever minimum river flows are required. And that seems to describe the current situation.
Let's look at the Yakima River System. At present, the reservoirs in the Yakima River system are at 76% of their 1 million acre feet storage capacity (see here). But the basin's irrigators and fishers required 2.5 million acre feet. This extra 1.5 million acre feet come from snowpack (see here) and it is NOT there (yet). Curren snowpacks are 52% of normal, 3rd lowest on record for this time of year. Yeah, it is possible that a cold, wet spring could rebuild the snowpack, but that would require abnormally high precipitation levels and atypically cold temperatures. Other experts seem to be far more concerned about summer river levels than UW's resident Pollyanna...
Steve
 
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I've been fishing the same snowfed streams for 35 years, watching things change. Been fishing and skiing and observing this winter. This summer is gonna be bad. I came to the same water year vs. retained for the basins I'm concerned with, no storage. I always try to be optimistic, but just don't think we're gonna get a helpful total at this point.
 
Avista started the annual drawdown of Lake Spokane and then decided against it. I'm not sure of the rationale but this article almost looks contradictory. :unsure:

Lake Spokane at the Long Lake Dam​

The elevation of Lake Spokane at the Long Lake dam is 1535.6, which is at normal summer elevation. Avista will no longer be attempting to draw down Lake Spokane behind Long Lake dam this year. Because of increased precipitation, warm weather, and melting snow, flows in the Spokane River have risen to a level such that a drawdown of the lake is not feasible. We will keep you posted on this page if the situation changes.
 
Definitely going to be a low lake and river level year here in the Cascades. We had a similar low snow pack the winter of 2022/2023 which resulted in a smoky summer due to the wide spread fires, which is also when Canada caught fire and blanketed the more northern US states such as Minnesota and Wisconsin in smoke.
The new normal is anything but...
 
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It's gonna be a dry summer unless we get some serious rain! It's supposed to get colder next week so a snow storm in the mountains wouldn't hurt either.
 
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