Governors Drought Task Force Meeting

November, 26, 2002

Jan Curtis Report

The drought that has impacted Wyoming since March of 2000 has not diminished despite recent snowfall across the state. As noted in Attachment 1, early snows do not as a rule mean that the snow season will end with above normal snowfall. With soil moisture near the surface to 40inches depth at record low values, streams will have great difficulty establishing a meaningful flow to help fill the states reservoirs. Soils need to recharge before streams are able to adequately flow. Based on the magnitude of our drought, we need about 70% above normal snowpack by April 1 for the drought to end. Based on long term climate records, the best the state can expect is about 30% above normal. This essentially means that it would take nearly 3 years to this exceptional precipitation totals for the drought to end. Based on long term statistics, this drought has only a 4 percent chance to end next summer. Because of El Nino and other factors, I am forecasting only an 85% of normal snowpack by April 1, up 8% from last season’s state wide average but still about half the amount needed for the drought to end. On average, the state is nearly one year behind in total precipitation over the past three years.