After a dry start to the winter, four weeks of wet weather have increased snowpack in the upper Snake River basin to above-average levels. The amount of water currently in the snowpack (snow water equivalent, or SWE) in the Henry's Fork watershed is at 126 percent of the 30-year median, providing a good chance of average to above-average streamflow this spring and summer. SWE in the Island Park area has lagged behind the rest of the watershed and is currently at the 30-year median. Some sites in the Teton watershed have as much as 150 percent of average water in the snowpack.

 

Basin-wide, SWE is about 130 percent of average for the watershed upstream of all of the major storage reservoirs in the upper Snake River system, with some locations reporting SWE in excess of 160 percent of average. Although the reservoir system is still only 50 percent full, the snowpack currently in the mountains will be sufficient to fill the entire reservoir system this spring and summer.

 

If wet weather continues into the beginning of the growing season, all storage water rights of Henry's Fork irrigators will fill. This means that water stored in Henry's Lake and Island Park Reservoir will belong to local irrigators and will not need to be delivered to users out of the basin, which is good for local fishing conditions. In 2013, even though Henry's Lake and Island Park Reservoir filled, nearly half of the water belonged to lower valley irrigators, which resulted in very high streamflows in the Henry's Fork during July and August. Many of you experienced these conditions as you tried to fish the Ranch. Barring a very dry spring, this situation should not be repeated in 2014, promising better fishing conditions this summer and higher flows next winter.