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Snowpack Update - Jan 2019

Sean Visintainer - 01/14/19

Montana Snotel

Some snow, but more is needed

Well currently we have some snow in the Idaho mountains for the Coeur d'Alene and St. Joe Rivers, but not quite like last year. Current snowpack levels are on the lighter side, while not absolutely terrible we could use a little more bump as we finish out the winter. Normally we do get our biggest dumps of snow in the second half of winter so nothing to be concerned about yet as there is still plenty of time to rack up more percentage.

The Clearwater drainage is currently sitting pretty decent at the moment with 94 percent as of this writing. This could be another great year over on the NF Clearwater and Kelly Creek area so no complaints there.


Western Montana is looking similar to Idaho, a little light overall. The Bozeman area is looking solid so far, but other than that most regions have less than 90% snowpack. Time will tell though.

In the meantime what does this mean? It mean winter fishing has been pretty productive and spring runoff might be more fishable than not in many places. Anytime we have a low snowpack year my motto is get out there early and as often as possible. Oh wait that's my motto every year!


Snow Water Equivalent - 2019 vs 2018 vs 2017

Basin Snow Water Equivalent
2019
Snow Water Equivalent
2018
Snow Water Equivalent
2017
NF Coeur d'Alene 87 % 113 % 81 %
St. Joe 88 % 123 % 90 %
Spokane 80 % 114 % 86 %
Clearwater 90 % 127 % 94 %
Lower Clark Fork 84 % 125 % 93 %
Upper Clark Fork 89 % 160 % 92 %


Here is what we are looking at currently for Idaho / Montana snowpack:


Idaho / Montana Snotel Snow and Percipitaion January 14th, 2019