How low can we go – many headwater rivers are flowing near the bottom 10% tile level for this time of year. Any rain would help…
Tag: Salmon River
June 11 Flow Update Across the State
When you see the Buffalo Fork snowmelt runoff peak happen in the upper Snake River basin, you know the snowmelt runoff season is winding down. Here’s an update with similar recession years to help in monitoring this year’s flow. Projections are made for some rivers if a peak wasn’t happening.
May 23 2025 Flow Update
Alphabetical flow graph summary – includes most Idaho rivers across the state and similar runoff years. Short on time to do full analysis but wanted to share.
Snow 2 Flow Update
For MF, Main Salmon, Selway & Lochsa and a few more – Owyhee, Bruneau and Salmon Falls Creek. Enjoy, be safe and keep and eye on the weather and flow levels for changing conditions.
April Fool’s Day Storm
Wow – what just hit us? Here’s a summary of the key indicators I was watching leading up to this storm. Never stop learning and watching the weather to better understand what’s happening here, around us and why.
The PNA started hinting at weather system brewing back on Mar 13 with sharp decrease and biggest drop since last Nov storm. A Buoy Pop was also marked on my calendar from around same time. Always nice to see in agreement of indicators two weeks out.
Here’s current PNA which shows the Apr 1 drop, then going positive which means return to high pressure in early April.
Severe Weather Europe from Mar 31 provides a good explanation, just need to read between the Ads. They summarize the springtime battle between winter and summer patterns fighting for the lead. This probably led to the isolated weather pattern and intense storm with 10” falling at Brundage and a couple at Bogus Monday morning followed 24 hours later with 10” at Bogus while Tamarack & Brundage received a little Tuesday morning. OpenSnow forecast weather radar nailed storm hitting Bogus early Tuesday morning and not pushing north. I should have been watching the radar loop for Brundage storm. https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/april-2025-forecast-stratospheric-polar-vortex-impact-cold-air-united-states-canada-fa/
Severe Weather also provides a good summary of early April weather and why we’re gonna be warm & dry in the West and the East needs to prepare for colder and wet. Many other models are picking up intensity of this event now. Stay safe.
Spring skiing returns this weekend to Idaho’s southern resorts with freezing night temps and warm day temps. Enjoy while the nights are still freezing in the mountains.
This also means the rivers will rebound with the warmer temps. Be safe out there – a friend is on a solo trip down the Main Salmon this week.
4 Rivers Snow & Flow Update
Here’s a snow & flow update for the Salmon, MF and Selway rivers and a Lochsa Bonus. Current snow conditions are displayed with analog years mentioned in previous posts. Streamflow forecast are from the NWS around Jan 20 and compared to observed runoff the analog years. January 15 is consider the half way point for winter. Overall the snow is in good shape because of the great start, but more snow is need after this dry January as show in image below.
Beginning of January Snow Comparison to More Years
With more snow accumulating in our mountains, let’s look at how this year compares with other years that follow Strong El Nino Years. In the past, we’ve had some good snow and flow years following Strong El Nino Years. The easiest way to explain this is – it seems the oceans and atmosphere has a lot of energy to get rid of the following year. Let’s see if we can still use the past to predict the future and how the snow is tracking.
Here’s our new table of Strong and Very Strong El Nino Years and the years that follow. You can quickly see by the color shading that only a few are below 80% of average, and rest are near average, above average or outstanding with greater than 150% of average runoff.
Here’s the big picture for the Salmon River. This snow index is based on about 20 SNOTEL sites. It also shows that this year, 2025, is tracking these years that follow a Strong El Nino Year.
Looking at Hoodoo Basin which has daily SWE starting in 1967 also shows it was a good snow year. Interesting to note that Pete’s analog years were also 1967, 1993 and 2017 which all followed Strong El Nino Years.
Flow & Precipitation Update – Aug 21, 2024
With some moisture moving in this weekend, we’ll soon see which rivers benefit from the moisture and which basins the moisture helps to slow the fires progress. This update has a few weather outlooks, and projected flow graphs along with comparisons to see how the Aug 6 flow projections preformed. Projections were pretty good. Rivers are easier to project when they are approaching their seasonal lows for the year.
Snow Weather and Flow 