Unused water to help farmers

CANYON COUNTY (AP) - Skiers in Idaho may be disappointed with this season's snowfall, but a new report shows that the water outlook for Treasure Valley farmers is relatively positive.

A Natural Resources Conservation Service report found that January's snowpack ranges from 60 to 100 percent of normal across Idaho, but the precipitation was only 35 to 85 percent.

Those numbers aren't great, but the unused water from last season means farmers who rely on the Nampa and Meridian Irrigation District don't have to worry just yet.

"We did end the irrigation season last year with quite a bit of carry-over," spokesman Daren Coon said. "I wouldn't say we're good yet, but we're OK."

In contrast, Coon's western neighbors in the Owyhee Irrigation District are already facing another early end to the irrigation season even if there's near normal snowpack this season. Last season's drought left the district without any carry-over.

"Usually (the outlooks) vary between northern Idaho and southern Idaho," NRCS water supply specialist Ron Abramovich told the newspaper. "This year, it's the carry-over and how many places are still feeling last year's drought."

What's going to make the difference in the coming weeks for Idaho's reservoirs and winter adventurers is how much and what kind of precipitation Mother Nature drops this season, he said.

"If it falls as rain, we just can't capture it and store it and save it because they really can't top off the reservoirs until May and June," Abramovich said. "You have to save room for flood control."

In years past, late-season storms have transformed dismal years into good ones. Coon said the late storms produce mammoth snow packs for the Boise Basin. For that to happen though, temperatures are going to have to fall in the Treasure Valley.

"It shouldn't be this warm this early," Abramovich said.

Recent temperatures have been 10 degrees above normal. Unseasonably warm temperatures are blamed on a Pineapple Express that brought warm fronts from the southwest, but it also brings with it more precipitation than usual for the Treasure Valley.

"It's a pretty abnormally warm and wet system for this time of year," National Weather Service forecaster Elizabeth Paidan said.