A friend at Montana’s FWP asked if I’d mind posting a quick reminder that there are a fair number of water body closures still active in Montana right now, though with the recent weather cycle change back home in Montana and the likelihood of some cooling water temps, the closure board will changing daily. Details […]
Weather
The Native Fish Society is asking for your help to encourage authorities to replace hoot owl restrictions on the Deschutes – details and comment form available here. Accuweather’s monthly forecast for Maupin suggests the blistering heat of the past weeks should be moderating a bit, but the river temp history (as of roughly 0800 CDT […]
A week ago I posted the snow water equivalent graphic below for the Western US and echoed the concern that many were expressing at the time about snowpack loads in much of (most of) the West. Today’s SWE graphic above does show some decent improvement after a wet and chilly week across at least the […]
Today’s snowpack snow water equivalent map above (current as of this morning) looks pretty damn dismal for most of the West; northern WA and central WY have the best snowpack loads of the group, and the rest of the West runs from pretty damn skinny to dismally low. We just drove from Southwest Montana down […]
Western snowpack has strengthened across the northern tier during the past 30 days or so; SWE (snow water equivalent) values are up per the graphic above, which is current as of this morning. Most of MT has edged up over normal, and the Yellowstone area is looking pretty good right now, as is the mountain […]
Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) for the western US is running close to average across the northernmost tier (as predicted) and thus far most of WY, UT, and CO haven’t seen much snow laid down compared to longterm averages. It’s obviously very early in the snowpack building season with a boatload of winter yet to come. […]
Once we roll to late October or early November, it’s always comforting to visualize the early season snows in the hills laying down the foundations for the annual snowpack build, stockpiling the water we’ll be fishing next season. An early season storm has pummeled Montana and other parts of the Northern Rockies this weekend, including […]
Here on the first official day of astrological fall it’s time to look ahead at what the late fall and winter season forecasts hold (at this relatively early date) for the snowpack building season soon to start in earnest in the northern Rockies. As we’ve been noting now for years (if not a decade and […]
Western Snowpack (as SWE) Looks Decent at This Point The water year for the northern Intermountain zone of the Western US has been decent, yielding above average snow water equivalents in recorded snowpack as per yesterday’s data below, with a focus on Montana in the second image below. As always there are a host of […]
Several months have gone by since we took at peek at the climatology forecasts issued by NOAA/National Weather Service; having followed these forecasts now for something close to a decade here on ChiWulff, it’s actually been damned impressive how accurate they’ve been (certainly out to the 6 month timeframe in particular…). The temp and precipitation […]
Granted it’s far too early to infer where the Western snowpack will end up by the end of May, though it is interesting to see how snow water equivalent currently stored in the hills stacks up against historical averages for this time of year. The two graphs above, harvested this morning and showing SWE for […]
More often than not it seems the first burst of winter weather generates headlines, even in the Northern Rockies. Our former neighbors in the Flathead country are staring a genuine winter storm in the face this morning, and it’s even snowing in Livingston early this morning as Jake rounds up gear to head out for […]
As time keeps rolling along we’re headed into the very earliest beginnings of the snowpack building season for those of us whose favorite rivers rely on winter’s snowfall to load water for the next season. Having played this game of reporting long range forecasts for a decade (more or less) here on Chi Wulff, the […]
Honing in on Montana above, Snow Water Equivalent measurements as of this morning look pretty robust for this time of year across southwestern Montana, and close to average for the remainder of western Montana, save for Kootenai and St. Mary/Milk drainages up north. Talking with family ensconced in Montana (Jess in Missoula and Jake and […]
