It’s ‘snow surprise’ C.O. survey team found plenty

It took a bit longer than expected for a federal snow survey team to complete its Central Oregon measurement course west of Bend on Wednesday — due to all that deep snow at Dutchman Flat. So the results may not surprise most High Desert residents who have become very familiar with their shovels and snow-blowers this winter.

“Overall, the Deschutes Basin is at 134 percent of normal for today’s date,” Kurt Moffitt, soil survey leader from the Redmond office of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, told NewsChannel 21 Thursday in sharing the data they gathered. .

“Our average peak snowpack date isn’t until April 1, so we still need some more snow for the remainder of this month to keep us above normal,” Moffitt said. “But it’s looking pretty good so far.”

Moffitt said higher elevation sites seem to be closer to normal, while lower elevation sites “are holding strong and are above to well above normal.” All good news for water users, from recreation to irrigators and governments monitoring water supplies.

Near Dutchman Flat, at 6,300 feet in elevation, Moffitt said, “we had an average of 122 inches of snow depth, and 42.7 inches of snow water equivalent — that’s the amount of water in the snow, if you were to melt that 122 inches. The 30-year normal SWE for the Dutchman site is 39.6 inches, so we are at 110 percent of normal for that site.”

“At our site near Wanoga Sno Park (at 5,400 feet), we averaged 64 inches of snow depth, and a snow water equivalent of 22.4 inches. The 30-year normal is 18.1, so we are at 124 percent of normal for that site,” Moffitt said.

But at the Hungry Flat Snow Course, 2 1/2 miles above Seventh Mountain Resort (and 4,400 feet elevation), the average 17 inches of snow depth and six inches of snow water equivalent is way above the normal of 2.1 inches of SWE — nearly triple (286 percent) the norm for this point in the winter.

The snow surveyors will be taking one more sample at the end of the season, in late March,