Feb. Snow Survey Shows The Obvious

The February Snow Survey released by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) confirms what most suspected: the state remains dry. Snow data reported from Arizona’s 15 snow telemetry (SNOTEL) sites and 23 manually measured snow courses indicate snowpack in the Salt, San Francisco, Gila, and Little Colorado River basins is much below average, while little snow can be found across the Verde basin. The survey has shown that Arizona has experienced a series of dry winters beginning in 1996, with brief relief in 1998 and 2005. With each successive dry year, more and more moisture is lost from the mountain soils. In the springtime when snow melts, some of the runoff is absorbed by the soils and the remainder enters into the streams as runoff. If the soil moisture deficit is great enough, much of the expected runoff may disappear into the soil profile leaving downstream water users short of water during the spring irrigation season. The National Weather Service predicts warmer-than-average temperatures through June and below-average precipitation through March. To learn more about the condition of Arizona’s surface water supplies readers can go to the Arizona NRCS home page at http://www.az.nrcs.usda.gov/.