Mid-March heat dome is melting Idaho’s snow way too earlier. Even the higher elevations are starting to melt and rivers are rising. Here’s an update of how we got here and the 3-D Drought that put us in this unique position. Winter 2026 will be remembered as a winter with near normal water year to date precipitation, elevation distributed snowpacks, warm temps and now a spring heat dome that is melting the snow and pushing rivers up, except in the Owyhee because there is very little snow to melt. Let’s hope cooler weather returns by month’s end and a few cool wet storms in Aril arrive to save our remaining higher elevation snow to melt later this spring. A wet spring is needed this year. Another record dry Apr-May-Jun like last year, would not be good. Spring rain are needed now while the snow is melting to increase runoff. Even a late spring rain event like the one that occurred June 1, 1963 pushing the Owyhee River up to 5000 cfs, would be sweet. 1963 is an analog year for this year which also had very low snow runoff in the Owyhee. Lessoned learned from watching Owyhee River runoff – it often sets the stage for runoff trends seen elsewhere in southern Idaho.
Snow Weather and Flow 