Going from snow-rich to drought-worried
By Terry Murry on Tuesday, May 18th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News Columbia Basin Top Stories
PENDLETON – The Columbia Basin has enjoyed a winter of well above average snowpack. Now, however, it is going deeper day by day into drought conditions.
“It is quite odd where the mountains are still in really good condition,” National Weather Service Hydrologist Marilyn Lohmann said in an interview earlier this month. “There is still some high-elevation snowpack that is actually above normal.”
Lohmann said the damage was done by an extremely dry April.
“We’ve seen that abnormally dry and then the various drought categories increasing as we’ve gone through the month,” she said.
Umatilla County is mainly categorized as abnormally dry with bands of moderate drought and extreme drought moving westward. Morrow County only has a sliver of abnormally dry land. The rest is in moderate or severe drought.
