Temperatures have hovered in the single digits and even ventured below zero already this season turning everyone into an amateur meteorologist and predicting this year’s snowpack.

As Santa and the new year are now approaching at a torrid pace, the only sure thing about what this year’s snow storms is that they are unpredictable.  Already this season, more than one storm that was forecast to drop a significant amount of snow has swept a different direction and denied the area the moisture.

According to Wade Payne, Soil Conservation Technician with the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), it’s not a new phenomenon.

“Our data has had to typically start about January because of the varied amounts of December,” he stated from his office in Cokeville.  “It’s generally inconsistent.”

Despite the lack of concrete data at the time, Payne was kind enough to share some information with the Independent as residents in Western Wyoming hunker down for another winter.

“Indian Creek had a site go down for the first time in 20 years so we’ve gotten off to a bit of a rough start,” he replied.  Numbers including Hams Fork in the Lower Green Drainage is at 44 percent.”

Payne also travels some unforgiving terrain as he gathers the data and tries to calculate accurate results.
“The upper Bear River is at 66 percent of average,” he added. “This is where we typically deal with it the most.  I start in Pinedale and work over to Larson Creek and hit Afton and then Cokeville.  We have eight manual sites but we have roughly 20 automated sites that we use as well.”

The information in the region is normally retrieved by snowmachine, which is a change from years past when a helicopter was used.  Payne spoke of some of the stations being difficult to reach.

“The weather to get into these sites can sometimes be pretty tough,” he stated.  “Some of them [the stations] are 33 miles into the mountains and it becomes a challenge.  It’s straight in and straight out and your out of gas in your snowmachine.”

He also commented on areas around the Pinedale area.

“We’ve got Big Sandy opening as well as the Blind Bull Summit,” he said.  “This is all part of the upper Green River drainage.  East Rim Divide is one that sits up in that drainage.  These are all automated sites that give us updates ona  regular basis.”

The use of the data may be a mystery to even long-time residents of the area, but the applications for using the numbers have an impact on nearly every citizen in Western Wyoming.

“The information is used as a setting for reservoirs for one thing,” concluded Payne. “So an accurate reading is essential.  It essential for them to store the right amount.  It helps them to know how much to release and how much to keep.  Agriculture uses the information as well obviously.  For example, if it’s going to be a year where water might be low, a farmer might decide to plant wheat instead of alfalfa because it takes so much water to produce an alfalfa crop.  There really are dozens of uses that people utilize this data.”

He also shared that those interested in keep up to date on the latest developments for snow levels can utilize the following website:  www.wrds.uwyo.edu/wrds/nrcs/snowrept/snowrept.html

The website is regularly updated.