Snowpack is almost gone
By Terry Murry on Wednesday, June 7th, 2023 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
PENDLETON – A warmer and drier May means snowpack is making an earlier exit in northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington. National Weather Service Meteorologist Camden Plunkett says that’s why the Umatilla River is running lower than normal and inflows into the McKay Reservoir are below the norm.
“For the few high-elevation Sno-Tel sites that historically hold a snowpack into late May and early June, they are now all below normal for northeast Oregon and southeast Washington,” Plunkett said.
This area did have more snow than the eastern slopes of the Washington Cascades, however.
“Their situation is actually worse than ours here,” he said. “They didn’t have as much snowpack over the wet season.”
Things are rosier to the south. “If you flip over to southwest Oregon and southeast Oregon, they’re still above normal since they had that much greater than average snowpack,” he said.
