Water Year Report Released

The National Weather Service has released their report on this most recent water year, which shows that, to no one’s surprise, we had quite a bit of precipitation this year in northern Wyoming.
While northern Wyoming experienced above average runoff flows and stream flow volumes in water year 2018, southern Wyoming experienced just the opposite. And reservoir storages remained above normal throughout the water year.
Looking ahead to next year, hydrologist Jim Fahey with the National Weather Service out of Riverton predicts that southeastern Wyoming will experience above normal snow water equivalents early, and that northwestern Wyoming’s rivers and creeks will have above normal base flows. He also says that reservoir storages will stay above average as well.
He says, though, that the magnitude of the spring and early summer runoff is highly dependent on the amount of moisture that Wyoming receives during the late March through early June time frame—especially for basins east of the continental divide.