By Chabella Guzman, PREEC Communications
The annual Yonts Water Conference, held on Wednesday, April 10, at the UNL Panhandle Research Extension and Education Center in Scottsbluff, updated ag producers on topics from water to weather.
“So, we’ve seen some improvement early on the snowpack, which was below average. Improvement is in the upper and lower North Platte River Basins, as far as near average snowpack that’s allowed our forecast to increase,” said Lyle Myler, area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation Office in Mills, Wyo.
When Reclamation looked at the snowpack and other water supply conditions on April 1, the forecast above Seminole Reservoir was 800,000 acre-feet for the months of April through July.
The contribution from the Sweetwater is 80 thousand acre-feet, and then there is another contribution from the Casper Mountain area, Alcova to Glendo is right around 120,000 acre-feet.
“If you take a look, NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) does a forecast of inflow into Seminole, and they’re forecasting 825,000 acre-feet. So just a little bit more than us, and the Corps of Engineers does a forecast for Glendo because they have flood control space operations there, and their forecast is 100,000 acre feet for that Alcova to Glendo reach. But you know, as far as forecasts go, we’re right in the neighborhood,” Myler said.
The North Platte numbers look good, and there is above-average carryover storage. When Reclamation calculates whether there’ll be an allocation, it looks at a forecast and supply of 1.1 million acre-feet, which has been above that for the last few months.
Myler said the National Weather Service’s 90-day outlook for the North Platte River Basin shows a trend for above-average precipitation. “In the Casper area last weekend, we had three to four inches of snow with some rain. So that’s helping us out. The forecast is more wet weather in the high country, where we need the snow for our water supply, so I’m optimistic.”
Myler is cautiously optimistic as things could change, but ag producers should have a full water supply with the carryover supply.