Mild winter may lead to fire, water problems
Although the groundhog saw his shadow Monday and predicted six more weeks of winter, John Abatzoglou, climatologist and University of Idaho professor, said if winter continues as is, an early spring may be on its way with a potentially severe fire season.
Abatzoglou said an unseasonably warm winter has led to a snow deficit on most mountains.
“It’s actually been the warmest October through January on record in Pullman, and that sort of holds regionally,” he said.
During the same time period, Moscow saw about 10 inches of snow in town, significantly below its average of 35 inches, Abatzoglou said.
Taking temperature and snowpack into account, he said the area’s fire season could be interesting.
“Just because we have a low snow pack doesn’t guarantee we’ll have an active fire year,” Abatzoglou said. “If we have another warm and dry summer, that’s sort of the right recipe for a very large fire year.”
Penny Morgan, UI fire ecology professor, agreed with Abatzoglou’s prediction.
“When warm dry summers follow warm dry springs, we get more widespread fires,” Morgan said. “Clearly, how much snow we have on the mountains makes a big difference on how we warm up and dry out.”
Abatzoglou said the main factor contributing to low snowpack is warmer temperatures.
“In the mountains, the story is not much better,” he said. “The Cascades in particular, are running 50 to 75 percent below normal in terms of how much water is in the snowpack for this time of year.”
Although some locations are experiencing snowpack deficit, he said there is still time to recover. But he is not optimistic.
If the snowpack remains as is through April, when snow levels are more telling of summer conditions, the area may experience some water stress going into summer, but it also may result in an early spring.
For Tim Link, UI hydrology professor, his main concerns when it comes to a low snowpack year are if snowpack levels will rise, and if not, if there will be enough water to flush juvenile fish through rivers and water for irrigation.
“Without irrigation, you don’t have a livelihood,” said Link of the farming populations.
Link said Idaho typically experiences its coldest days in December, so Idaho is statistically out of the cold weather window, reducing the chances of increasing snowpack.
Abatzoglou said precipitation levels have been normal since October, but snow plays an important role in water resources for the summer.
“Our water resources are one of the more important factors that determine our economy, our recreation and our culture in the Northwest,” he said.
The level of snowpack determines when the water in it will be available for use, he said, and more than half of Idaho’s water resources are used in agriculture.
“Snow has this way of releasing water during the warm season, so that provides supplemental water for vegetation,” Abatzoglou said. “If you don’t have that slow release of water for the mountain ecosystems going into June or May, that allows your moisture levels to decline.”
Snowpack levels play an integral part of fire season, and Morgan said Idaho’s fire season is getting longer, stretching an extra 32 days since 1984.
A reason for longer fire seasons is a warmer temperature, Morgan said. She said Idaho has experienced warmer springs and the trend may continue.
“If it’s warmer, dryer, then the fuels are going to be easier to burn,” she said.
Although fire management has the resources to put out about 96 percent of fires, Morgan said balancing the need to protect people against the costs and benefits of fire is the biggest challenge.
“In the absence of fire, fuels accumulate,” she said. “It’s kind of a paradox … the more we suppress fires, the more fuels accumulate.”
Prior to the 1930s, Idaho experienced extensive fires. Morgan said because of increased skills in fire suppression and a conducive climate, the level of fires fell until recently.
“We had less fires, fuels have accumulated and now we’re paying the price,” she said. “We need to think about fires in different ways. If we just look at it at area burned, we, in the end, will be unsuccessful, because we can’t put out all fires. We don’t have enough resources.”
Morgan said looking at fires as a tool and resource is necessary to change landscapes.
“Many fires are scary, and it’s very tragic when someone’s house burns or when somebody loses their life,” Morgan said. “I think if we started to recognize that fires are going to happen and it’s up to us to be proactive … we could come up with a much more sustainable relationship with fire.”
Katelyn Hilsenbeck can be reached at [email protected]