SANDPOINT — As North Idaho settles into spring, snow that has accumulated in the Selkirk and Cabinet mountains since November is beginning to melt and feed the region’s streams, rivers and lakes. 

According to hydrologist Cody Brown, the amount of water stored in the Panhandle’s mountains (known as snow water equivalent) is about average for the first time after several years of lackluster accumulation. 

Brown, who works for the Idaho Snow Survey — a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service — examines trends in North Idaho’s snowpacks and offers insights that inform water resources decisions. 

In the Sandpoint region, Brown monitors a trio of snowpack telemetry (SNOTEL) sites that continuously report snow depth, temperature, snow water equivalent and other environmental characteristics. 

Those sites — located about 5,500’ high at the top of Schweitzer, in the Cabinet mountains near Trestle Creek, and in Coeur d’Alene National Forest near Clark Fork — show the mountains surrounding Lake Pend Oreille have likely reached their peak snow water equivalent and are starting to shed meltwater. 

As that occurs, operators of the region’s dams that control bodies of water like Lake Pend Oreille and Lake Coeur d’Alene must manage flood risk while simultaneously accommodating endangered species, maintaining predetermined stream temperatures and oxygen levels, and meeting power generation demands. 

Brown said that water stored in high elevation snowpacks, when slowly released throughout the spring and summer, can help fortify forests facing wildfire risk. 

He noted, however, that having a high snow water equivalent in the mountains doesn’t always correlate with a mild fire season. As an example, he pointed to the spring of 2021, during which the region experienced a burst of hot weather ahead of summer. 

“In April, we had an above-normal snowpack,” Brown said. 

“When that heat wave hit in the following months, it rapidly disappeared, and the region dried out really quickly,” Brown added, noting that the Panhandle went on to experience crop and livestock loss and a long fire season later in the year. 

This spring, a similar phenomenon occurred on a smaller scale. In the final week of March, a two-day thaw across the Panhandle approached record high temperature marks for the month. 

“There are some places where we saw up to 4 inches of snow water equivalent loss,” Brown said. “We typically don't see something like that happen at the elevations it was happening at until mid-April.” 

As the region transitions away from winter, Brown said it’s difficult to accurately predict how the weather will behave and how long snow will remain in the mountains. 

In early April, the long-term forecasts his office consults when preparing to make water resources recommendations called for a hot start to the summer: “Looking out three months, they are anticipating above-normal temperatures,” he said. 

Regarding long-term patterns the Idaho Snow Survey has observed, Brown said that the SNOTEL sites he monitors in North Idaho have shown a slight downward trend since they began recording data in the late 1970s. 

“It's not a significant decline. It's very, very slow,” he said. 

If you look at arid states in the western U.S. — or even the southern half of Idaho — Brown said the trend is more pronounced. 

“There is a stronger signal for declining snowpacks,” he said. “Up here, it's not as strong, but it is happening.” 

Brown noted that there is evidence suggesting that a stronger downward trend in snowpack depth may be occurring in North Idaho’s valleys and forests, but because most of the SNOTEL sites he monitors are located in the mountains, it’s difficult to confirm a genuine pattern. 

“I have reasons to believe that lower elevations are seeing a rapid decline over the long-term history,” Brown said. “But, we just don't have that data to really show that.”