The Cold, Hard Truth: Snowpack Levels Doing Well this Year

If you spend enough time with me, you’ll find it’s no secret that I love snow. The alpine glaciers and snowfields abundant in the Pacific Northwest provide space for winter and springtime recreation. They are also critical to the health and viability of our forests, watersheds, and agricultural system. As an avid skier and self-proclaimed energy wonk, I find myself following the ebbs and flows of each season’s snowpack to inform where I go on the weekends, and to monitor how much stored fuel our region will have for use in the later spring and summer months. That’s right, fuel. The Pacific Northwest is blessed with an abundant hydroelectric system that provides reliable and clean baseload electricity for both publicly owned and investor owned utilities in the region. As we have detailed previously on the CUB blog, and as Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) succinctly outlines on its website, snowpack in the region operates like a battery, storing water for later release into our rivers, streams, and hydroelectric reservoirs.

Snowpack is especially beneficial to the hydro system because of its ability to store water for later release when the demands on our electric grid are higher. During the spring and fall, peak demand on the grid is lower because temperatures are relatively mild—fewer people are running highly consumptive appliances like air conditioners and electric heating. Even though the Pacific Northwest is a winter peaking electric system, we are beginning to move toward a dual peaking system, with sharp spikes in the summer and winter due to the aforementioned uses. With an abundant snowpack, the Northwest hydro system can store water for a longer time relative to precipitation falling as rain, which runs off much more quickly. This can lead to more robust hydro availability later in the warm summer months as snow continues to melt.

The availability of hydro in the most energy-intensive months can greatly benefit both utilities and customers. If utilities can lean on the strong hydro capacity that a high-volume snow year provides, it can be dispatched during the warmest, peakiest times of the year. This means that utilities can serve customers with an electricity source that has no fuel cost, rather than having to ramp up pricey natural gas plants or purchase power on the market. The lower the snowpack is in a given year, the less flexibility utilities have to dispatch this cheap power at times when it is needed. Further, with excess hydro, utilities can generate extra revenue for customers by selling that energy into the Western Energy Imbalance Market (EIM). In short, more snow is both good for our environment and good for utility ratepayers. And skiing, of course!

Now, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that snowpack levels for our region are faring well this year as we enter the late spring and summer months. Thanks mostly to a very wet February and March, Oregon snowpack is above average overall, and Oregon’s basin outlook report is generally positive. While that is good for our state—and its rivers, forests, and wildlife—we actually get most of our hydroelectric capacity from the Canadian Rockies that feed into the Columbia and Snake River Basins. Recent reports from Columbia Basin in Washington show that snowpack in that region is at 111 percent of normal. Meanwhile, the snowpack levels in British Columbia are not quite as rosy as those here in the states; BC’s government reports an average of 79 percent of normal snowpack throughout the province as of May 1.

Overall, these figures paint a picture of what should be a robust hydro season. The bad news though—and harsh reality—is that climate change is severely impacting winter snowpack, and it has been diminishing throughout the west. In the future, we can expect to see further declines in snowpack levels. A study from OSU demonstrated that projected temperature elevations will result in a 56 percent average drop in snowpack-stored water in the McKenzie River watershed of the Oregon Cascade Range by the middle of the century. Further, the effects of climate change can have multiplying impacts: as summer and fall wildfires continue to ravage our region, new studies have demonstrated that areas that have burned can diminish local snowpack for years to come.

At CUB, we’ll continue to do our part to advocate for policies that protect our climate and Oregon ratepayers’ pocketbooks. Stay tuned to the CUB blog for updates, and, in the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for snow!

To keep up with CUB, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

• Share this post on Facebook.
• Share this post on LinkedIn.
• Share this post with email.

« Back