Flows remain low
By Terry Murry on Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
PENDLETON – National Weather Service Hydrologist Marilyn Lohmann said the water level remains low in area streams and the Umatilla River. She checked late last week and saw that the river was at only 150 cubic feet per second.
“Normally, in early December we see 300 to 500 cubic feet per second,” she said. “We haven’t seen the rainstorms and snow up in the mountains that we normally see in the last part of November to kind of get those stream flows back up where they should be.”
Lohmann said the McKay Creek reservoir is down to around 10 percent of capacity.
“That’s kind of where they expect to be this time of year,” she said. “Inflows are still pretty low, and the outflow has been turned pretty much off.”
The U.S. Drought Monitor, last released on Dec. 2, shows this area to be divided between extreme drought and exceptional drought conditions.
