http://www.azcentral.com
High country lacks snowpack for first time since 1930s
Shaun McKinnon
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 3, 2006 12:00 AM
High in the San Francisco Peaks outside Flagstaff, in a small basin 10,000 feet above sea level, a survey team scouting for snow this week found just 4 inches where there should have been more than 50.
Four very lonely inches.
Almost everywhere else across the state's high country, the teams found nothing but dead leaves and parched pine trees on days that usually mark winter's peak, alarming new evidence that Arizona is in the throes of its driest winter on record, perhaps the driest in centuries. advertisement
How dry is it? At 29 of 34 snow measuring sites monitored by the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service in Arizona, there was no snow Wednesday. That's the barest the survey sites have been going back to the earliest records in the late 1930s.
"Arizona is off the bottom of the charts," said Tom Pagano, a hydrologist for the service in Portland, Ore. "This year is unlike anything we've ever seen before."
Snowpack is critical for Arizona's water supplies, feeding the streams and reservoirs that supply Phoenix, Flagstaff and dozens of other communities. Those reservoirs have been buffeted by a regional drought entering its 11th year, a stretch punctuated four years ago by what many scientists thought was the driest year ever.
"We were all thinking that 2002 had been a once-in-a-lifetime event, that it would never happen again," Pagano said. "So far, this year is worse than 2002."
Warmer, drier weather in February has even taken a toll on the Colorado River, which had been headed for a second above-normal runoff year. The snowpack on the river dropped to 94 percent of average for March 1. Forecasters now expect flow into Lake Powell, the key measure of the river's production, to reach just 91 percent of average, which will slow recovery from record-low water levels on the river.
The effects of the snowless winter began spreading across Arizona months ago and will only worsen. Forests are dry, with fire danger at summertime levels in some areas. Wild animals are struggling for food and water. Dry conditions have fouled the Valley's air since November. Many rural communities will begin to feel water shortages by the end of spring.
Last year's wet winter is all that stands between some areas of the state and immediate disaster. The six reservoirs operated by the Valley's Salt River Project still hold abundant supplies, more than enough to avoid any delivery cutbacks this year. Last winter was so productive that the Verde River, which is fed partly by springs, is flowing at higher levels now than it would be otherwise.
"If we hadn't had a wet winter last year, we would be in so much trouble now in regard to water supply, I wouldn't even want to speculate," said Dallas Reigle, senior hydrologist for SRP.
Though scientists will debate why this drought has deepened, they know how: The winter storm track veered sharply to the north. Today marks the 136th consecutive day without rain at Sky Harbor International Airport. The November-through-February period was the driest on record for Phoenix. Flagstaff has received just 1.6 inches of snow since fall; the average is 72.5 inches.
"We just never had a snowpack," said Larry Martinez, water supply specialist for the conservation service's Phoenix office. "It just never developed."
Fallout of the dry winter is readily apparent across the state and in your back yard. Among them:
Forests
"Dry" hardly begins to describe the conditions in the forests, where moisture levels in trees hover near what you'd find in the lumber stacks at Home Depot. Couple that with record-high energy-potential readings and it's clear why forest managers are nervous.
But their fears are not embedded in forecasts. Fires started burning in February and so far have charred more than 55,000 acres in Arizona and New Mexico, including about 4,200 acres in the "February" fire outside Payson. Those numbers are hard to compare because typically, no one is even keeping track this early in the season.
The U.S. Forest Service imposed restrictions in four areas last month, the earliest the agency had ever taken such steps. Limits on campfires, chainsaws and other activities were put into place in the Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino and Tonto national forests from the Mogollon Rim down to the Pinal Mountains near Globe.
Forest closures are possible by spring, but forest officials say they will move in steps as conditions warrant.
What's out there now is a nasty combination of drought-weakened pine trees similar to what fueled the deadly 2002 wildfire season and dead or dying scrub that sprouted after last winter's rain and snow, feeding fires that swept the lower elevations north and east of Phoenix.
"It's like 2002 with grass," said Chuck Maxwell, a fire meteorologist for the Southwest Interagency Coordination Center in Albuquerque. "You could try to build a fire with 1-inch sticks and logs, and that would be 2002, and then stack a bunch of newspaper and dry grass underneath, and that's what we have now. It's pretty much textbook."
High on the list of threats are multiple outbreaks, large fires burning in more than one region at the same time.
"Conditions are uniformly this way across the whole Southwest," Maxwell said. "We could have fires everywhere in all regimes right now."
The posts in this forum are NOT official forecast and should not be used as such. They are just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. They are NOT endorsed by any professional institution or STORM2K.
Thanks bud!