Slow start: Meager snowpack could cause problems

Central Oregon’s winter began with cold, snowy weather in November that had many of us expecting more of the same ahead. It has not turned out that way.

There are a few things affected by low snowpack, one of which is the forests which surround the mountains.

Last year’s winter gave the mountains plenty of snow. That melted quickly at the onset of spring, and that was followed by some big rainstorms.

That led to a huge cheatgrass grow, which provided much of the fuel for a very busy wildfire season. The initial snowpack doesn’t need to be very high for there to be a big fire season.

“If we do get a lot of spring rain while that cheatgrass is growing, we can still have a very light snowpack, a heavy spring rain season, and have that same grass component like we had last year,” Central Oregon Fire Management Service Officer Alex Robertson said Tuesday.

Central Oregon’s water supply is also directly affected by snowpack, but not as much as it might seem.

A spokesperson for the city of Bend’s Utilities Department said the majority of water the city gets is from surface waterways or underground aquifers.

Both sources are resilient and can buffer years with less snowpack. Last winter’s huge snowfall amounts also helped.

“We’re following on the heels of last year’s stellar snowpack, so that’s going to help the upcoming irrigation season,” Deschutes Basin Watermaster Jeremy Giffin said. “The bad news is December. It was terrible.”

But there’s still plenty of time to make up for the meager snowfall we’ve seen so far this winter.

“Some good news to that is we still have roughly 80 days till the start of irrigation season, so there’s a lot of time to make up for that lost ground,” Giffin said. “About 40 percent of the time when we’re at this kind of snowpack, we’re able to make that up by the start of irrigation season.”