Glacier National Park is making steady progress with snow removal, but this year’s substantial snowpack and the continuing avalanche danger are limiting road openings. On the North Fork side, the Camas Road is open, as is the Inside North Fork Road from the ranger station to Big Prairie. All other roads are officially closed to vehicle traffic. See this weekend’s press release for details.
Tag Archives: snowpack
Western Montana waters expected to rise fast, hard once snow melts
Here’s the Missoulian’s take on the start of Spring runoff . . .
Western Montana’s flood season has a lot in common with the space shuttle Endeavour: It’ll be big when it goes, but the start date keeps getting postponed.
“Even though we’re losing some water in the (snow)pack, it’s not to the level we normally see,” National Weather Service warning coordination meteorologist Marty Whitmore said Tuesday. “But when that snow comes off, it will come in a fairly quick time.”
By Tuesday morning, the region north of an imaginary line along Thompson Falls, Kalispell and Browning was seeing significant melting in the mountains. But below that all the way south to Dillon and Ennis, moisture was still accumulating from storms on Sunday and Monday.
The melt is on; rivers and streams are rising
From today’s Daily Inter Lake . . .
A trend of warmer weather will settle in over Western Montana this week and the deep mountain snowpack finally will start to melt, with rivers and streams expected to approach or exceed flood stage by the middle of next week.
The forecast calls for temperatures in the 60s or higher through Saturday, along with a chance of showers and thunderstorms during the latter part of the week.
“We just anticipate the melt to occur,” said Marty Whitmore, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Missoula. “We’re going to see significant rises in creeks and small streams … Some of those are going to start coming out of their banks.”
Spring flooding expected with record snowpack; could see historic flood levels
The Flathead Beacon posted a good article today on the flood potential in the Flathead River Basin, including the latest forecast estimates. This one is recommended reading . . .
The National Weather Service reported last week that the snowpack in certain areas of the Flathead River Basin have reached historic levels, likely leading to flood or near-flood levels on the basin’s major rivers in May and June.
Ray Nickless, a hydrologist for NWS, said in a spring flooding report that some rivers, such as the Swan and the North Fork of the Flathead, are forecast to reach flood levels that could place them in the top five highest flood levels on record.
In the past three weeks, the Flathead has seen a significant increase in snowpack levels. The levels were at 141 percent of average on April 15, and recent data shows the Flathead now at 183 percent of average.
Flooding in Northern Rockies expected to start this week
A warming trend later this week is expected to increase snowpack runoff and likely cause small stream flooding by Friday.
The Daily Inter Lake has the story . . .
The National Weather Service expects mountain snowpack to begin melting at a more rapid rate beginning Wednesday and extending through Friday, according to a weather outlook released Saturday afternoon.
A ridge of high pressure is forecast to bring warmer air to the Northern Rockies, increasing the likelihood that small streams and creeks will spill out of their banks by Friday.
The warmer weather system is expected to come on the heels of persistent rain and snowfall today and Monday at elevations above 6,000 feet, where snow levels are already well above historic averages.
National Weather Service says western Montana rivers will likely rise next week
In this week’s conference call, the National Weather Service continues to fret about the potential for flooding . . .
It may not be as soggy as the spring of 1997, but this year has potential for record floods in western Montana and the Idaho Panhandle.
“When we get those warmer temperatures next week, we’ll see those rivers start to react,” National Weather Service hydrologist Ray Nickless said on a Thursday conference call. “We’ll be seeing high water all the way through May and into June.”
Many parts of the northern Rocky Mountains have record-high snowpacks, and the ones that don’t nevertheless have kept the snow much longer than usual…
Snowpack delays scheduled opening of some facilities in Glacier National Park
Glacier Park is having trouble getting dug out this year . . .
Due to an unusually large, lingering snowpack and cool temperatures, Glacier National Park officials announced delays in opening some east side campgrounds and the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. The opening date of the Many Glacier, Cutbank and Two Medicine Campgrounds will be June 10th, instead of the usual Memorial Day Weekend opening date. The Swiftcurrent Motor Inn opening will also be delayed until June 10th rather than the previously anticipated June 3rd. Visitors with reservations at Swiftcurrent Motor Inn will be accommodated at other Glacier Park, Inc. properties. Park crews are working diligently to get facilities uncovered, water and wastewater services turned on, utilities repaired and roads dug out.
Although May has shown some signs of spring, weather stations at West Glacier, East Glacier and Saint Mary all recorded near record or record precipitation amounts for April. US Geological Survey snow surveys measured 88 inches of snow on the ground at the 5,900 foot level near Siyeh Bend on the Going-to-the-Sun Road (Sun Road) in the end of March. The survey was repeated a month later and 106 inches of snow was measured at the same location. Snow depth data has been collected since 1993, and the highest recorded depth was 166 inches at the 7,000 foot level in the end of April 2011.
Snow depth and accumulation information available online
Judging by the number of “hits” on the subject here at gravel.org, a lots of folks are interested in the unusually high snowpack at altitude and the potential for flooding later this spring.
For those of you who wish to keep track of such things, WeatherStreet.com has a web page that tracks snow depth and snow accumulation values for Montana. It also has the most recent SNOTEL snow depth reports.
Link: Montana Snow Depth and Snow Accumulation (WeatherStreet.com)
Storm system adds to already-deep snowpack
Snow at the higher elevations just keeps piling up. Here’s a report from the Daily Inter Lake . . .
Mountain snowpack continued to pile up over the weekend in Northwest Montana, the result of a storm system that arrived Friday.
Automated snow measuring sites across the region recorded snow water equivalents accelerating well above historic averages, largely because snow depths have been increasing at a time when they are normally decreasing.
Local flooding threat continues to grow
The Daily Inter Lake has a good write-up on yesterday’s National Weather Service briefing on the growing flood potential in the Flathead and surrounding areas. Short version: We’ll almost certainly see flooding and it will likely persist into June . . .
As the big chill continues, the snowpack across Western Montana and particularly in the Flathead River Basin persists along with continued forecasts for high flood potential.
In a Thursday briefing, the National Weather Service in Missoula maintained and in some cases upgraded its high-water forecasts for Northwest Montana rivers and streams.
Hydrologist Ray Nickless emphasized that the problem is that there has been little snowmelt in a snowpack that has actually gotten deeper in some areas through the month of April.