Autumn rain is finally falling in parched Northwest Montana, but streamflows are at or near historic lows this week and the Flathead Valley’s total precipitation this year is nearly 6 inches below normal.

“They’re just a warm day away from record lows,” said Wayne Berkas, a supervisory hydrologist with the Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center. “What happened all through winter, which has kind of messed things up in the northwest part [of Montana], is that during the fall and the winter we ended up getting most of our precipitation as snowfall, but then it would rain. ... When typically the snow starts melting, in April, there wasn’t any snow to speak of.”

Streamflow gauges maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey show water levels in the Middle and North forks of the Flathead River in the fourth percentile. That means that the flows are lower than 96 percent of historical measurements over the past 75 years.

Both rivers are flowing at less than half their average rates, and in Glacier National Park, Swiftcurrent Creek was flowing at just a quarter of its usual volume.

To the west, the Yaak and Fisher rivers are the lowest they’ve ever been at this time of the year. Gauges along the Kootenai River near Libby and in Leonida, Idaho, both register just above a third of the Kootenai’s average flow.

The National Weather Service’s rain gauge at Glacier International Airport averages 13.88 total inches of precipitation by this point in the year. So far, 2015 has delivered a scant 7.97 inches. Following the driest summer on record, the Flathead Valley has only gotten half its typical rain in September and October.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, about 55 percent of Montana’s total area is currently affected by drought, affecting about half the state’s population.

However, Northwest Montana remains the driest, covered by what the federal publication classifies as “extreme drought.”

It’s part of a continuous band of intensely dry conditions that stretches west through central Washington and south through Eastern Oregon, the southwest portion of Nevada and most of California.

The strengthening El Nino event isn’t likely to help much. Forecasters with the National Weather Service expect the system to shift precipitation away from Montana and continue to push warmer air into the region.

“The last time we saw similar streamflows going into late fall, into the winter, was fall of 2009 and the spring of 2010,” said Jen Kitsmiller, a Weather Service meteorologist.

That was another El Nino year, she said, and during the prior fall, flow gauges on the Swan River and the North and Middle forks of the Flathead River were about as low as they are now.

“Most areas had about 65 to 75 percent of their normal snowpack,” she said. “It’s hard to say what the exact snowpack amount will be, because each El Nino pattern can be different, but we are expecting an even stronger El Nino event this winter.”

Early season snowpack measurements show current snow accumulation in the Flathead River Basin at just 18 percent of normal. The Kootenai River Basin is at 11 percent.

Luckily, Kitsmiller said, the 2010 drought didn’t last too long. A wet spring and early summer helped bring the region closer to a normal precipitation total.

What happens next year is anyone’s guess, but she said that for now, the agency is sticking with a below-normal streamflow forecast headed into 2016.

Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.