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Winter may be driest on record By Bill Kettler Rarely have so many people hoped for a cold, damp March. You don�t need a weatherman to know it�s been a dry winter. The signs are everywhere. Stream flows have shrunk to record lows. Forest fires broke out in January and February. High school ski races had be moved to California because there wasn�t enough snow on Mount Ashland. Snow surveys across the Rogue Basin point to the driest winter since 1993-94. With just one month remaining in the rainy season, the winter of 2000-01 stands a good chance of becoming one of the driest in the 90-some years that weather records have been kept in Southern Oregon. Precipitation since Sept. 1 has totaled just 5.93 inches at the Medford airport, 44 percent of the normal average of 13.4 inches for the six months from September through February. On March 1, 1994, Medford had received just 6.04 inches of rain in the months since September 1993. "We don�t have a lot of mid-elevation snowpack," said Jon Brazier, a hydrologist for the Rogue River National Forest. "There�s not as much snow, and it�s not as dense as it would ordinarily be at this time of year. "Storms have been coming out of the Gulf of Alaska and running down the coast. Mount Ashland has been getting the head of the storm, or the tail. We just haven�t had anything that would bring a foot of snow, or two feet of snow." A year ago, at the end of February 2000, Medford had received 12.1 inches of rain (90 percent of average). On Wednesday, the overall precipitation for the Rogue and Umpqua basins stood at 49 percent of average. The snow at several measuring stations around Mount Ashland held about 46 percent of the average annual water content for the end of February. Other Oregon watersheds reported similarly discouraging numbers: 52 percent of average precipitation in the Willamette basin; 61 percent in the John Day basin; 61 percent in Lake County. While the snowpack is low, conditions are far better than they were during the winter of 1976-77, the "drought winter" that lingers in the memories of many long-term Oregon residents. On March 1, 1977, snow on Mount Ashland contained just 10 to 20 percent of its average water content. Irrigators and foresters take little satisfaction from those numbers. "We�re concerned about the lack of snow," said Jim Pendleton, manager of the Talent Irrigation District. "Irrigation districts make their living off the snowpack." Pendleton said reservoirs that feed TID ditches are down about 25 percent from their normal levels, just about where they stood during the dry years of 1992 and 1994. Late-season storms could still deepen the snowpack. The south side of Mount Shasta went from well below average precipitation at the end of January to near-normal levels by the end of February. Storms pounded Mount Shasta almost nonstop, leaving happy skiers and snowboarders with 9 feet of snow. Forty inches of snow fell in a 24-hour period on Feb. 21-22. The snow contained about 8 inches of water, nearly three times Mount Shasta�s typical average precipitation for February. The big storms left just a few inches of new snow on Mount Ashland, less than 100 miles north. "It�s just the luck of the draw," said Tim Larive, marketing director for the Mount Shasta Board & Ski Park. "We�ve been on the other side of that coin before," he said, recalling dry years when Mount Shasta skiers made regular trips to Mount Ashland. "We can empathize." Jim Wolf, of the Oregon Department of Forestry, said foresters anticipate more fires this summer because the woods will dry out sooner. Wolf said a 200-acre fire in January on Wagner Creek and Monday�s 11-acre fire near Trail show that the forest is already unusually dry. Foresters have learned that the number of rainy days during fall and winter often hints at the severity of the coming fire season. Wolf said fewer than 60 rainy days usually makes for a busy fire season, and so far this winter there have been about 20 rainy days. "We should be well into the 40s by now," he said. State climatologist George Taylor said no one has any easy explanation for the dry winter. "Nobody predicted a dry winter," Taylor said, but a ridge of high pressure air that built up over the Northwest in the fall stayed put, and the air diverted storms to southeast Alaska and Southern California. Taylor said there�s still some chance that spring could be cool and wet, which could bring more snow to the mountains. "There�s a better than even chance it could occur," he said. "Generally our dry winters are followed by wet springs." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.