Snow surveyors take a personal look at the snowpack

It has been a fairly light winter this year, but the season isn’t over yet.

This year, surveying the snow has been quite different for conservation technicians.

Soil conservation tech Cleve Bagley from theNatural Resources Conservation Service says, “We started out pretty good, percentage wise and since then we’ve gone down hill.”

Bagley says last February was the best month he’s seen in years. Last year around this time Pine Creek Pass had a snow depth of 44 inches, this year it was significantly lower.

“We’ve had about zero precipitation in February”

“The moisture content in the snow has a lot more moisture content than some of our dryer (storms) during January and February because it’s so cold that it don’t have the moisture in it. But, the closer we get to spring the more water we have in the snow” said Bagley

“A good storm would make a big difference, just one big wet storm. a lot of times we do get that in March, the first part of March we can get some good snow storms.”

While snow pack is operating at only 85 percent, experts say the reservoirs are doing pretty well. That’s due to the late summer showers we had last year.